The Better Angels of Our Nature
by Lissa Bryan
Summary: Bella is a powerful telekinetic, escaped from a government research facility. With her is Edward, her guardian angel, sent to earth to protect her. Can they find safety? Can Bella love this extraordinary creature? OOC/AU, Rated M.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I can't decide what to write next, so I'm going to post the first chapter/synopsis of a few stories, and wait one week to see which one gets the best response. There is a poll set up on my profile page.

Twilight and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. I'm just borrowing them for a bit and will return them washed and neatly folded. No infringement intended.

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><p><strong><em>The Better Angels of Our Nature<em>**

By Lissa Bryan

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Chapter One

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In retrospect, Bella acknowledged that it was her soft heart that had led to this whole mess, but she still couldn't regret it.

She lay on a table, staring up at a white tiled ceiling. A single panel of fluorescent lights was in the center. She couldn't move. Whatever drug they had injected her with left her completely paralyzed, able only to blink. Her body had been re-clothed in a set of beige hospital scrubs and there was an IV attached to her arm.

She closed her eyes and fought off tears. She tried mentally reciting poetry, movie dialog, song lyrics, anything to get her mind off the trouble she was in.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Bella had been making more slip-ups in public lately. It was only a matter of time before she was spotted and "they" appeared again. She didn't know who "they" were, but she'd been aware of their presence a few times in her life, always moving on when she saw one of them.

This time, she'd been in a tiny town in Washington State, a place she thought no one would ever think to look for her. She'd found a job in a bookstore, a lovely vocation for a bibliophile such as herself, and it had even had a tiny apartment available on the floor above.

It was probably living alone which had led to her small public slips-ups. At home, alone, nobody would comment if the refrigerator door closed itself or a book left a shelf, seemingly of its own accord, and floated into her hands. She'd gotten too comfortable using her abilities and hadn't even thought about it when she was in the grocery store and couldn't reach a can on a shelf. Mrs. Cope had seen that one. She owned the coffee shop across the street and was probably the biggest gossip in town. Bella couldn't sleep that night for worrying about it, but really, what was Mrs. Cope going to say? "_I saw a can float into that bookstore clerk's hand._" No one would believe her, right?

She wouldn't say that, though. Bella had known her type before. She'd start with the sly insinuations that Bella was "strange", that something was "wrong" with that girl, and before she knew it, people would be staring at her in stores and edging away whenever she walked by. And that was generally her cue that it was time to move on to a new city, with a new name.

There was no hiding the last incident, which is why she found herself strapped to a table, staring at the ceiling. People had taken pictures. It was probably playing all over YouTube right now. God, she'd been so stupid, but she couldn't let those people die, not when she had the ability to save them.

The door opened. Bella's eyes flicked toward the sound, but it was just out of her range. A man stepped into her line of vision, wearing a lab coat over a black suit, carrying a thick file in one hand and a hypodermic in the other. He pulled a chair from the wall to sit by her bed. He was young, mid to late twenties, the copper tint of his skin and the ink black hair pointing to Native American heritage. He was smiling, a warm and friendly smile that did nothing to put her at ease.

"Hello, Bella, I'm Dr. Black. I'm going to give you an injection now and you'll be able to speak and move a bit." He slid the needle into a tube on the IV.

Sensation came back and Bella jerked against the straps instinctively. She looked around quickly. No one else in the room. She eyed Dr. Black speculatively. Could she ...

"Don't try anything," he warned. "I'm not without talents of my own." Then he smiled. "Don't worry, I understand. You're just afraid. It's a natural reaction. But no one is going to hurt you, Bella. You're safe here. Safer than you were out there on your own, I assure you."

"Who are you?" Bella asked, and was alarmed at how hoarse and raw her voice sounded. All that shouting, she supposed. "What is this place?"

"Project Theta," Dr. Black replied. "You're in a US government research facility."

Bella closed her eyes. The words she had always dreaded. "I'm your new lab rat?"

"Bella, it's not like that," Dr. Black said. He leaned forward in his chair, his tie hanging down like a plumb line. "We don't want to hurt you. We want to help you develop your abilities to their full potential."

"Can I refuse?"

"No, you can't," he said. "You're not safe out there, Bella. We're not the only government which selects talented people for our program."

_"Select_" as in _"kidnap_".

He went on, "It was only a matter of time before someone snapped you up. There are countries which would pay a fortune for someone like you and their programs aren't as ... _nice_ as ours."

Bella felt tears leak from the corners of her eyes and drip down her temples.

Dr. Black opened the file. "We've been tracking you for a long time, Bella. You first came to our attention with the Tyler Crowley incident."

Bella's stomach went cold at the sound of the name and unwillingly, memories she'd prefer to regret pushed their way to the surface of her mind.

Dr. Black studied the papers. "Hmm. High school quarterback, dead in a hotel room with a semi-hysterical young woman calling for emergency services, a young woman who happened to have a bloody nose." He looked up at her. "It hadn't fully developed then, had it?"

"No," Bella whispered. Her abilities hadn't become strong and reliable until she hit her twenties.

Dr. Black nodded. "That makes sense. Your abilities were in line with your brain development. Once your brain was fully mature, you got a handle on them, I'd imagine." He looked back down at his papers. "Autopsy states that Crowley's heart was crushed as if a fist had reached into his chest and squeezed it. The coroner notes that they'd never seen anything like it.

Bella's voice croaked through a tightening throat. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to kill him. I want him to stop- I just ... I think I pushed too hard." There was a strange sense of relief to finally talk to someone about this. People had always suspected that she'd had something to do with his death, especially because of the bloody nose. They thought he'd hit her and then she'd done ... _something._ It made her senior year hell because Tyler had been popular and his girlfriend, equally popular, had gone on a personal vendetta against Bella.

Bella had been shocked when Tyler asked her to go out with him to a party. Her first date would be with the most popular boy in school. She thought it was a dream. It turned out to be a nightmare.

Bella was shy and awkward as a child, and not much better in her teen years. She spent most of her time trying to blend into the background so that she wouldn't become a target for those small outbursts of malice and cruelty that children often inflict on those on the lowest level of the social totem pole.

Even when she was very young, her peers knew that there was something _different_ about Bella, and it was like sharks smelling blood in the water. Weird things happened when Bella was around. When she was very young, it was mostly things like items falling from shelves or light bulbs bursting when she was upset.

Her mother, Renee, felt that the "difference" made Bella very special. It was she who had helped Bella learn what she could do and how to control it. She challenged Bella to make things move with the power of her mind, slide a book across the table, lift a towel and fold it, and later, as a teen, run the vacuum cleaner while reading a book. Her father wasn't quite as excited about Bella's abilities and he would always jump when he saw an object float by of its own accord, but he was a loving dad and she had a wonderful home life. Her brother, Jasper, had always been her best friend. He had a bit of talent himself and was the only one who fully understood what it was like for her.

Tyler told her the party was being held at a run-down motel on the edge of town, which he explained by saying it was so the kids could drink and didn't have to worry about clean-up. But when he had opened the door, there was no one inside. When he locked it behind them and grinned at her, she knew she was in deep trouble.

"You weren't the only one," Dr. Black said. "He raped two other girls, both of them outcasts such as yourself. Neither was willing to bring charges against him. Ever consider that you might have done the world a favor?"

Bella said nothing.

"Six months later, we have a report of a strange car accident. A toddler wanders out of her house and into the street. The driver doesn't see her, but before she could hit the child, her car ran into _something._ Front end all smashed to hell." He held up a picture of a car with a crumpled hood and bent bumper. "Strangely enough, the driver said there was nothing in the street _to_ hit. No other cars involved. The cops even searched the local repair shops for anything that would match the accident. And your name shows up in the police reports as the one who took the toddler back to her house, again with a nosebleed. The mother thought you must have been involved in the accident."

He sat back in his chair and tapped the tips of his fingers together. "That's when you took off. Did you spot us?"

Bella shook her head. "My brother did."

"Your brother has a bit of talent himself, doesn't he?"

Bella gasped. Fear sliced through her. "P- please, please don't ..."

Dr. Black waved a hand. "Don't worry, Bella. He's low rated. Barely a two on a scale of ten. We don't take anyone less than five."

"What am I?"

Dr. Black smiled. "You, my dear, are a _twenty_. My greatest find. Our scales don't go high enough for you. We monitored your brain waves while you were unconscious and your Delta-Theta waves are off-the-charts. I can't wait to see what you can do."

"And if I refuse?"

"I'll be very disappointed, but I can't force you. However, you won't leave here, regardless of whether or not you cooperate. You need to accept that, Bella. We can't risk you falling into the hands of one of our nation's enemies."

"My family?" Bella whispered.

He shook his head. "We can't allow you to contact them."

"They'll think I just disappeared?" _Jasper would never accept that_, she thought. He knew she'd never just up and leave without contacting him. No matter how suddenly she'd ever left a location, she'd always let him know where she was. Jasper's bulldog tenacity meant he would never let this go, never just accept that she must have died and move on with his life. He would never stop looking for her and he would make as much noise about it as possible. Would he be putting himself in danger? Was this the kind of organization who "silenced" people who snooped too much and became too much of an irritation?

"You're known to do that, move on abruptly without leaving forwarding information," Dr. Black shrugged. "He won't get much help from law enforcement."

If Dr. Black thought Jasper would leave it at calling the cops to report her missing, he hadn't been watching her family very closely. But Bella said nothing.

Dr. Black released her restraints and Bella sat up slowly, her head swimming. "I'll show you around. Come on."

She stood, legs shaking unsteadily. Dr. Back offered his arm and she took it, afraid she might fall without support. He punched a series of numbers into a pad, casting a grin at her over his shoulder. "Don't bother memorizing them. We're given new codes every day." The door clicked and he pushed it open, leading her into a long hallway with blank white walls an gray-flecked tile floors. Very institutional, clean and impersonal. No windows. Every few yards, a camera bubble was set into the ceiling, and every door had a keypad set into the wall beside it. She wondered how much of this security was real, and how much of it was meant to make the residents feel that they were constantly watched.

"This will be your room," Dr. Black punched in a number and opened the door. It looked like a nice hotel suite, a small dining/living area to the right and the bedroom to the left. Brown carpet underfoot and beige walls, one of which displayed an indifferent watercolor of a ship at sail.

Dr. Black led her back into the hall, which they followed until it opened into a large recreation room. It had a pool table, a few televisions, one of which had a video game system being played by a teenage boy, and a small set of shelves with books and board games. About a dozen people lounged on chairs or sofas, and all of them wore the same beige hospital scrubs as Bella. A few looked up when Dr. Black and Bella entered the room, but seemed to have little interest in newcomer in their midst. Bella felt stirrings of unease in her gut. The eyes of the residents were dull and listless, the eyes of people who had no hope.

"Hey, everyone," Dr. Black said cheerfully. "This is Bella."

A few voices said "Hi," but most of them simply stared at her before turning back to whatever had held their attention before she had entered. Only one person continued to look at her, a young man, whose expression was one of grim pity.

"Over here is the cafeteria," Dr. Black told Bella, drawing her over to an open archway. It had the ubiquitous smell all cafeterias seemed to share: the ghosts of meals past, grease and sour dishcloths. It made her already-queasy stomach lurch.

She followed the doctor down another hall, which he said led to the "research rooms." He opened one of them and Bella let out the breath she'd been holding. She didn't know what she had expected (and feared) but it was another pleasantly-bland room with a table in the center. One wall held a one-way mirror like Bella had seen in police dramas, which would allow people on the other side to watch without being seen themselves. It vaguely disturbed her. As if Dr. Black could sense Bella's unease, he opened the door to show her the observation area. The lighting was dimmer in here. Cameras pointed at the glass and a bank of computers sat under it.

"Have you seen your video?" Dr. Black asked.

Bella shook her head.

He pecked at the keyboard and stood back. "Watch. It really is incredible."

The footage started with the aftermath of an accident. A car was wedged beneath the side of a semi truck, and the chains holding the load of logs in place had snapped. A few of them had already fallen. Two of them lay atop the car, crushing down on its hood and roof. The audio was poor, but Bella could hear the faint screams that had ripped at her heart. The accident site was only a few blocks from the bookstore, and Bella had come upon it during her morning walk. That road was so dangerous. Both cars and logging trucks took its curves too fast and it was a miracle there weren't more accidents.

The emergency crews hadn't arrived yet, but a small group of bystanders had already gathered, some taking pictures, joking, chatting amongst themselves, describing other accidents they had seen. No one was helping the frantic woman who was trapped in the car, screaming. The load of logs creaked dangerously; gravity was not yet done with it. Bella saw herself come upon the scene and could see her mouth form the words, "Oh, shit," as she realized the top log was about to come down and it would land right on the windshield. It shifted slightly and the crowd gasped. Cell phone cameras were raised. For a moment Bella hated them. It was like they were watching a movie, excited to see what would happen next, but completely unconcerned that a human being was about to die in front of them.

Bella dashed up to the car and tugged on the door. Bent, as it was, it wouldn't open. Bella concentrated and ripped it off the hinges, tossing it aside. The woman inside was a bloody mess. She hadn't been wearing her seat belt and her face had been roughly introduced to the steering wheel. Bella helped her out. "My baby," the woman gasped, and sure enough, there was a car seat on the back passenger side with a baby wrapped in a pink blanket. "I'll get her," Bella promised. But as she spoke, the top log lost its battle with gravity and tumbled down the stack toward them. The woman screamed. Bella threw up her hands and caught the end of it. Her ability didn't require her to touch the object, of course, but having her muscles involved sometimes helped her concentrate. She staggered under its weight. _Too heavy, I can't-_

"Get the goddam baby!" Bella screamed at the mother, who was frozen in place, her mouth opened into a perfect "O" of astonishment. She couldn't hold it much longer. Her head was pounding and blood streamed from her nose. Too heavy. She'd never tried to hold anything this large before.

The mother dove in through the opening where the driver's door had been and scrambled to unhook the baby's restraints. She backed out, the baby clasped in her arms and screamed as the load of logs shifted again. The crowd was too close. If they all came down, they would roll right over the gaping onlookers. "Get back," Bella shouted. "All of you, get back!"

She stepped away from the log, swaying like a drunk, trying to reach the safety of the opposite side of the road before she collapsed. She made it to the yellow line before she lost her mental grip on the log and it came crashing down, bringing some friends along with it. The passenger cab of the car was squashed flat under their weight.

Bella watched herself fall to her knees in the middle of the road and then slowly force herself back to her feet. The onlookers were staring at her with awe, some with horror. Bella hadn't even noticed them at the time. Her only thought was getting back to the safety of her apartment.

"We had a hell of a time containing this one," Dr. Black said. "Every time we'd take the video down, it would pop up again from another source. We think we finally got them all, but just in case, we put out the story that it was a publicity stunt for a new movie about superheroes."

"What about the witnesses? Did you kill them?"

"Jesus Christ, Bella, what do you take us for? No, we didn't kill them. Good grief!"

He seemed so offended that Bella found herself apologizing.

"Most of them seemed to buy the publicity stunt story, but those who don't ... well ... who would believe them? They just end up looking foolish, like they were duped by the stunt." He gazed at her for a moment. "You were still out of it when my men went to your place to retrieve you."

It had been the worst migraine of Bella's life. She had taken some of the pills she had left over that the doctor had given her when she sprained her wrist last year, but they hadn't helped. It took hours for the blood to stop dribbling from her nose and she had been scared that she had actually broken something inside herself this time, blown a circuit breaker or two.

She'd heard the door smash in and had instantly known what was happening. "They" had come for her. She jumped out of be and ran to her bedroom door, locking it and dragging her dresser in front of it. She stumbled across the room to the window. The apartment had not been designed as a home, intended to be used as storage for the store below, so what few windows it had were high on the walls and small. She had to use the chair from her vanity table over to reach it. She pushed it open and jumped, her hands on the sill, struggling to push her body up and out. From up here, the ground looked a lot further away than she had thought it would. She decided she would climb out and dangle from her hands to try to lessen the distance of the fall.

There was a crash behind her and Bella whimpered, bringing up her knee to push through the window and a pair of hands grabbed her. Bella shoved at him with her ability, pushing too hard in her panic and he flew across the room to smash into the wall. Pain slashed through her head. Another man pulled her back through the window and Bella struck at him too, but she must have been running out of juice because he merely staggered from the invisible blow, charging back to tackle her as she turned to run. Bella fell face-first into the carpet and screamed as she felt his weight settle atop her. She kicked and fought as best she could, trying to remember the things Jasper had attempted to teach her about self-defense, but her mind was a panicked blank. He captured both of her hands.

The man she had thrown picked himself up off the floor with a groan. "Fuck, that hurt," he gasped. "You got her?"

"Yeah." The man had bound her hands with a zip tie.

The man on the floor reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver case. He opened it an took out a hypodermic, holding it needle-up and tapping the sides of the chamber.

Bella screamed again and lashed out at both of them with her talent. Blood poured from her nose, but nothing happened. She felt the man's hands on her arm, a small prick from the needle and then nothing.

"Did I hurt anyone?" she asked.

Dr. Black laughed. "You're concerned about _them_?"

Bella stared at the floor.

"They're fine," Dr. Black assured her. "I'm sorry I laughed at you, but I've never heard anyone worry about the people who kidnapped them. Trust me, they're used to it. Poor Mike has been set on fire by a pyrokenetic, had his mind attacked by a telepath, and beat up far worse than you by telekinetics such as yourself. But he just gets right up and keeps on going. He heals fast."

He led her back out into the room with the table and they both took seats, Dr. Black courteously holding out a chair for Bella.

"How long have you guys been doing this?" she asked.

"Since the late 1950s. The American government acquired some films of Russian telekinetic studies, and the Powers That Be decided that the Unite States need to develop its own program. As you can imagine, the concept of people who could assassinate a leader from afar without any weapons was a daunting concept. Today, we have telekinetics among the President's secret service guards who can throw up a shield if needed."

"How do you hide something like this from the public?"

"It isn't that hard. Most people simply don't believe in ESP and paranormal abilities. If they witness something odd, they convince themselves that their eyes must have tricked them or they come up with an alternative explanation. We merely have to encourage it."

"What about the government? I mean, does the President know about this place?"

Dr. Black shook his head. "Need-to-know basis only. Our budget is hidden under the guise of other programs, and managed by the military. So, don't be alarmed if you find soldiers in the hallways."

"How do you keep people from finding this place and wondering what you do here?"

"This facility is on a remote island that isn't on any maps. If you pointed Google Earth to this location, you'd see nothing but a blank expanse of sea water. We're far from any shipping routes and there's no air traffic overhead, either."

"Where are we, then, exactly?"

He grinned. "I can't tell you that, but I will tell you that it's as cold as a well digger's ass outside. If you try to escape, you _will_ freeze to death."

The Arctic, then. Or perhaps near Antarctica. That explained the lack of traffic which might spot the facility.

"Your heating bill must be a bitch," Bella said and he laughed.

"The facility is underground, which helps."

And there was the reason for the lack of windows.

She bit her lip. "Is there any way I'll ever be able to leave this place?"

He shrugged. "That's up to you. If you cooperate, there's a possibility you could be trained to assist the government with various ... tasks."

"Like being a bodyguard?"

He gave her a little smile. "Among other things. But that's in the future, something we can discuss at a later time. The important question is whether you will participate in our testing. It's to your benefit as well, Bella. We can help you learn how to tap into your abilities in ways you never imagined. We can help make you stronger. No more nosebleeds, no more headaches."

_Strong enough that maybe I could fight my way out of here,_ she thought. "I'll do it."

His smile was wide and she wondered if he might be a mind-reader. And then she wondered if those dull-eyed people in the recreation room had once had the same idea.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Voting continues until next Thursday on which story you would like me to complete first. (Visit my profile page for a link to the poll.) It seems split pretty evenly at this point, so I'm writing on both while I'm waiting for the results and I thought I'd go ahead and post the next chapters.

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><p>Chapter Two<p>

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Dr. Black told Bella he would give her a few days to "rest up" before any testing would begin. He walked Bella back to her suite and explained that her Social Security number was the code to unlock it. After he left, Bella explored. The chest of drawers opposite the foot of the bed held about a dozen sets of the scrubs she was wearing along with underclothing in her size, in plain off-white cotton. Apparently, they were to function as clothing and pajamas both. The closet had three pair of canvas slip-on shoes, but was otherwise empty. There was a small bookshelf in the living area which held a selection of the classics. That, at least, was something she could be grateful for. In the bathroom, she found her favorite brands of shampoo and body wash. _A little creepy,_ she thought. Had they gone through her apartment making notes on the stuff she liked?

The kitchenette had a small cabinet filled with what Bella had always thought of as "single people's food." Cans of ravioli, packages of Ramen noodles, Dinty Moore Beef Stew and clam chowder, all things she had in her own cabinets at home. Bella disliked cooking and wasn't very good at it, so the majority of her meals were comprised of things she could quickly heat up in the microwave.

A fresh pitcher of iced tea, her favorite beverage, sat in the refrigerator. She poured herself a glass and found it sweetened exactly to her liking, with a hint of lemon. She wondered if there was a message behind all of this. _We know everything about you_. Intimidating and unsettling, to say the least. She looked up and saw one of those camera bubbles set into the ceiling. She gritted her teeth. What would they do if she covered it up? she wondered.

The living area had a small sofa perched in front of a television. Beside the sofa was an end table that had a telephone on the top. Bella snatched it up eagerly, but there were no number buttons under the handset. She replaced it in the cradle, and felt rather stupid for the flash of hope. Of course they wouldn't put a telephone in her room with which she could contact the outside world.

Bella turned on the television, using the remote which had been laid in the center of the coffee table. The channel to which it was tuned was an information channel of sorts. The screen was blue and had white lettering which switched every thirty seconds to a different message. Rules about where residents could smoke, a book club meeting, and the cafeteria's menu for the day. She flipped through the channels and was impressed with the variety.

She turned it off again and stood. She needed to know more about this place and the best way to do that would be to talk to some of the other residents. Dr. Black had told her she was free to visit the rec room whenever she wanted. Bella put her empty glass in the small stainless steel sink before heading down the hall. She paused at its entrance, looking around for a friendly smile which might indicate a willingness to chat. The only person who seemed to pay her any attention was the young man who had stared at her with such pity in his eyes. He had soft chocolate brown hair which he wore very short and light blue eyes. Bella walked over to him and extended her hand. "Hello, I'm Bella Swan," she said.

"I remember," he replied, taking her hand in his own and giving it a shake. "I'm Quil Atera."

"Quill. That's an interesting name."

He shrugged. "Passed down through my family."

She wanted to ask what his ability was, but what if that question was rude? He saw her hesitancy and chuckled. "I'm a pyrokinetic," he said.

"Were you the one who set Mike on fire?"

He laughed. "Yeah, that was me. They told you about that, huh? That guy just wont quit." He patted the cushion of the sofa beside him and Bella sat down.

"Did you tell them you'd cooperate?" he asked.

She nodded.

"In your case, I don't think that's a good idea," Quil said.

Bella blinked. "Why?"

"I don't know." He looked away and started tracing the fabric's pattern on the arm of the sofa with the tip of his finger. "Look, I'm not a psychic, but sometimes I get these _feelings_, you know. And I just feel like it's a bad idea."

"They said they could make me stronger." _It's my only chance of getting out of here._

He nodded. "They can. Your talent is like a muscle. If you work at it, you can strengthen that muscle. They'll also show you new ways to use what you have. But, seriously, I can't shake the feeling that you shouldn't."

Maybe not, but if there was a chance of getting out of here, she had to take it. Bella looked around at the room and its defeated occupants and asked, "How long have you been here?"

"Five years, give or take. It's kind of hard to keep track of time around here."

Bella suddenly realized she hadn't seen any clocks in her little suite. No one wore a watch.

"Do you know the date?" Quil asked eagerly. "I'm thinking it's mid-to-late April, but I'm not sure."

"I think it's April 23rd."

Quil tapped his fingers. "Probably the 24th, then. It's a long flight from the States." He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket. "I'm keeping a journal as a way to try to keep track," Quil told her with a wry smile, "But I sometimes forget to write in it for a couple of days."

"How do we know when it's time for meals and the like if there's no clocks?"

"You'll hear a bell ring, or if you're in your suite, your telephone will ring. We don't celebrate holidays or birthdays here. They think it's too depressing because we'll miss our families the most on those days."

"Is there any more to the facility than this?"

"Not that we're allowed to see. At the end of the hallway by the cafeteria, there's a steel door, painted yellow. Stay away from it." He leaned forward and his voice fell so low it was almost a whisper. "Anyone who goes through the yellow door doesn't come back."

Bella's spine tingled "What did they do?"

Quil just shook his head and cast a glance at the dark glass bubble on the ceiling.

"The testing they do, does it hurt?"

"No, I think you've got the wrong impression. They're going to want to measure what you can do and then they'll start presenting you with more difficult tasks and try to get you to use your abilities in different ways. Do you get headaches?"

"If I strain, I get headaches and nosebleeds."

"Tell them if you do. They've got great medication for it and they'll take it down a notch so you're not pushing too hard. You know that every time you get a nosebleed, it's because you're breaking a blood vessel in your brain? You've got to be careful about that. You could wind up with permanent damage."

"Hi, Quil," a female voice said. Bella followed it and saw a small girl with brown hair. She couldn't be more than fourteen or fifteen.

"Hey, Jane," Quil said. "This is Bella."

"Ah, the telekinetic that Dr. Black is so worked up about," Jane said.

"Hi." Bella extended her hand to Jane and she shook it briefly. _She looks so young_... "You heard about me?"

Jane took a seat in a recliner nearby and swung out its foot rest. "Nothing to do here but gossip," Jane said. "Any word that we overhear from the doctors gets passed around and analyzed six ways to Sunday. Dr. Black is the best source because he always forgets not to talk around the residents when he gets excited."

Bella heard a strange note in Jane's tone. She got the impression that Jane didn't like Dr. Black and wondered why.

"He's been babbling about you for days, even before you went all Supergirl in front of about a dozen cameras." That last bit was scornful and Bella winced.

"I couldn't let those people die."

"You should have," Jane said bluntly. "You lost your own life in the process. Now your family will think you're dead."

Bella shook her head. "Not my brother. He knew about 'them'. He won't give up."

Jane exchanged a glance with Quil. "What?" Bella demanded.

"Nothing," said Jane. "Did you tell them you'd cooperate?"

Bella nodded, ready to defend her decision.

"Might as well," Jane sighed. "There's nothing else to do around here."

"Do you train with them?"

"No, I'm what they call a _plat_. A plateau. My talent is what it is. I can't improve it or change it."

"What sort of talent do you have?"

Jane gave her a wicked smile that chilled Bella's blood. "Would you like me to demonstrate?"

"No!" Quil said quickly. "Jane, stop it."

Jane pouted. "Just about the only time I get to do it any more is on the newbs."

"What can she do?" Bella asked Quil.

He answered, his voice grim. "She can cause pain, Bella. Sheer fucking agony, to put it bluntly."

Bella stared at Jane. "And you _like_ to do this?"

Jane nodded, a dreamy expression on her face. "Feels good. Doesn't it feel good when you use your talent, Bella?"

Bella shook her head. She'd never felt any sort of pleasure from it, only discomfort when she pushed it too hard. Ordinarily, it was the same as using a third hand. She looked at Quil for his input and he flushed a little. "Uhm, yeah ..." he said. "It does feel good."

Well, apparently, she'd gotten short-changed in the paranormal abilities department.

"Oh look," Jane said suddenly. "It's Little Miss Malice." She glared in the direction of a short dark-haired woman who had just entered the room. She made a beeline for their group. "Hi, Quil!"

"Hey, Alice," Quil replied. "Did you know about Bella?"

That was a strange way of putting it, but Alice nodded. She smiled at Bella. "Hi, how are you?"

"Don't you already know?" Jane asked, her voice sharp with spite.

Alice ignored her. "It's nice to meet you." Bella stuck out her hand but Alice grabbed her in a hug instead. She whispered into Bella's ear, "It's going to work, but not the way you think."

Bella didn't know how to respond to that. What did Alice mean? But Alice offered no further information. She and Quil began chatting about a card tournament that was being held later in the week. Alice looked slightly out of place among the other residents because she was lively and cheerful, a spot of bright color on a field of dull gray. Jane glared balefully at Alice the entire time. Bella leaned over and murmured into her ear. "You don't like her?"

"I hate her fuckin' guts," Jane hissed back. "She always all over Quil, throwing herself at him. It's disgusting."

Ah, jealousy. There, at least, was one small mystery solved. Jane must have a crush on Quil, but he didn't return her feelings. Which was a relief, because she would have been very creeped out by a man of his age having interest in such a young girl.

"How long have you been here, Jane?" Bella asked

"Since I was ten. Three years." Jane's voice was matter-of-fact. God, Jane was even younger than she'd thought.

"This is so wrong," Bella said softly. "Your parents...?"

"They think I drowned in a river near our home. They staged it to look like I'd fallen through the ice trying to take a shortcut across. Victoria is my mom now." She nodded a a woman with bright red, curly hair who was reading a book in the corner. "They usually assign kids to one of the grown-up women to take care of."

_Kids_, as in plural? "Are there more kids here?"

"Not any more," Jane replied and Bella felt a chill go up her spine.

"There was me, Riley and Jessica," Jane continued. "But Riley and Jess ... didn't do well. The doctors took them through the yellow door."

Bella gaped at her in horror, but Jane was nonchalant. She had to be wrong, Bella thought. She decided that she _had_ to be wrong, or else she wouldn't be able to cope being here around these people, around those doctors who could ... She cut off the thought and refused to even think about it.

Alice laughed at something Quil had said and laid a hand on his arm. Jane bristled, drawing in a sharp breath.

Alice swung her head to nail Jane with a glare. "Don't even _think_ about it," she warned.

Jane sulked.

"Do you play cards?" Alice asked Bella. "We need one more for our euchre team."

"No, sorry." The only game Bella knew how to play was gin, and she played badly.

A bell rang and Bella jumped a little at the sound. It reminded her off the bells that used to announce the end of a period in high school The residents rose to their feet and shuffled toward the cafeteria. Bella followed Alice and Quil. Adding to the high school-like aura, they were given molded hard plastic trays. But instead of a dour lunch lady ladling out their portions, they scooped their own food from pots and trays.

"Lasagne night!" Quill exclaimed. "My favorite."

Bella's stomach churned. She didn't think she'd be able to handle it, so all she took was salad and some rolls. She carried her trays to the tables, which were round and covered with white tablecloths. A single flower stood in each vase. Alice touched it. "This is the only time you'll ever see flowers here," she said.

And that was the final straw. Bella burst into loud, helpless tears. The other residents turned in their seats and watched her impassively. Alice pulled Bella into her thin arms and held her. She didn't say the soothing nonsense that usually accompanied such comfort, such as _"It'll be all right,"_ or "_It's okay._"

Because it wasn't all right. And it wasn't okay.

* * *

><p>It turned out that Quil was right about the testing. There was no pain, but the tedium was almost painful. A doctor in a white lab coat over a black suit (was it a uniform of some kind for "them"?) introduced himself to Bella as Dr. Snow and sat down at the table across from her. Bella thought that his name was apt because his hair was a brilliant white, though he didn't look much older than his late forties.<p>

Parked at the end of the table was a stainless steel cart covered in tiny objects which got progressively larger on the lower shelves. Dr. Snow opened his briefcase and took out a stack of forms before taking one of the little items and sitting it on the table in front of her. Bella peered at it curiously. It was trapezoidal in shape with a little loop at the top and "1G" was cast into its surface.

Pen poised for action, Dr. Snow looked over the top of his glasses. "Bella, can you lift this, please?"

She did. It floated about a foot off the surface of the table, slowly rotating.

"How long could you hold this object?"

"Um, as long as you want me to, I guess."

"Indefinitely?"

"Yeah."

He wrote on his forms. "You may let it down now."

After a few moments more of writing, he retrieved another weight from the cart. "2G" this one read. He asked her to lift it.

"How long could you hold this object?"

"Indefinitely, I suppose."

And on it went. By the time they had reached a pound, Bella was ready to pull out her hair. Dr. Snow turned to replace the weight and found the cart itself floating in the air.

"Indefinitely," Bella said, sitting back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Ah, yes ... I see." He cleared his throat. "I know this is tedious, Bella, but we have to follow protocols."

She regretted agreeing to this bullshit. It went on like that for days, though the objects themselves became more interesting as the weight became higher. When they finally came to weight that Bella could not lift without strain, that was when Dr. Black stepped back in. She didn't blame him for skipping the tedious part.

"Bella, something in your file interests me. When you prevented that child from being hit by a car, you used your ability as a shield."

"Well, not really," she confessed. "I pushed the car."

"What you need to realize is that you can form it into any shape you want," he told her. "You're manifesting of your ability as a pair of hands, but you can make it into a wall, if you like." He opened his briefcase and pulled out a bright yellow squirt gun. Without warning, he pointed it at Bella an shot her in the face with a stream of cold water.

"Hey!" she protested, wiping her eyes.

He shot her again.

"Stop that!"

"Put up a shield," he said. "Come on, you can do it." He squirted her again.

Bella was starting to get more than slightly pissed off. "I don't know what you mean."

"Make it into a pane of glass," he said. "Visualize your ability as a wall between us."

Squirt.

Bella ground her teeth. "Dr. Black, really, _stop_. I don't know how to do what you're asking."

"Stop the water, then, the way you did the car."

Bella pushed out with her mind and the next squirt was blocked in mid-air, splattering off an invisible surface to splatter down onto the table.

"Very good!" he said, and gave her a beaming smile. "Now, are you pushing at it when I fire, or are you holding that wall in place?" He squirted before he finished speaking and Bella sputtered when the water hit her square between the eyes.

"Better hold it in place," he said in a sing-song voice. "You never know when I'm going to fire." He punctuated each syllable with a squirt. Bella had her "wall" back up in place before he finished his sentence.

"How long do you think you could hold it?" he asked.

"I don't know," Bella said. "As long as I concentrated on it, I suppose."

"No strain?"

She shook her head.

He opened his case again and took out an inflatable baseball bat, the kind sold as souvenirs at games. He blew it up, his cheeks puffing out with effort. Bella giggled.

He squirted her. "That'll teach you to laugh at me!"

Bella laughed harder.

"Stop," Dr. Black said with great dignity. "This is _science_, here. There's no laughing in science." He tucked the plug into the side of the bat and bopped Bella on top of the head. "You're forgetting your wall."

She put it back up, but he didn't aim at her head again. He hit her shoulder. "Wall's too short," he commented.

She'd been concentrating on stopping his weapons from reaching her head. She tried to visualize her ability as an invisible skin that surrounded her, but trying to concentrate on that many places at once was difficult. His taps kept getting through. He finally tossed the bat onto the table.

"You're doing really well, Bella," he said. "You're already learning how to adapt it." He opened his briefcase a final time and took out a plastic baggie. "Your reward," he announced, placing an Oreo in her hand.

She giggled. "Reward?"

"Oh, I'm a big believer in the carrot-and-the-stick," he said. "You fail, and I squirt you. You succeed and you get a cookie. Just one, mind you. We wouldn't want to spoil your dinner."

And that's how they started. Dr. Black, who soon told her to call him Jacob, taught her how to use her ability to form invisible bubbles around objects. Once she had learned how to fully shield herself and keep it in place, he challenged her to shield objects on the other side of the room as well. It was mainly a matter of properly visualizing what she wanted and realizing that she could shape her ability by using her will, but that wasn't as easy as it sounded and it took effort and concentration. Over time, it became easier but was still subject to occasional failure, especially if she was distracted.

She began to look forward to her daily sessions. As the days and weeks passed, she, too, became fascinated by her abilities and it became almost an obsession with her, wanting to find out how far her talent really could go. There were no headaches, no nosebleeds. Jacob seemed to understand her limits and knew that she wasn't exaggerating or malingering when she told him she couldn't do any more that day.

Once she realized that her talent was malleable, she was able to use it as a projectile, as a knife, as nimble fingers which could pick up something as fragile as a soap bubble without breaking it, but could also deliver crushing force. She even learned to use it to lift herself and levitate, though she was never able to hold herself up for long. She thought that was strange, since she could hold an object of her own weight indefinitely, but not her own body. Jacob just shrugged and offered no explanation.

He had her hold objects aloft the entire time that they were in a session, while concentrating on other tasks. She learned to hold up multiple objects at once, more difficult than it sounded because she had to essentially split her concentration to each one equally.

About a month after she'd arrived, Jacob grinned at her when he came to pick her up at her suite. "Wanna see if you can stop a speeding bullet?" he asked.

He took her to a different training room than they'd used before. Big as a gymnasium, it had a back wall lined with rows of sandbags. A plain, white human-shaped foam dummy had been stood before it. A soldier stood at the other end of the room. As instructed, Bella put her shield up around the dummy and Jacob gave the order. The soldier drew his side arm and fired.

Bella _felt_ the bullet as it punched through her shield, a hot slice through her mind. The dummy now had a chunk of foam missing from its chest.

"You slowed it down quite a bit," Jacob said encouragingly. "Try again. Imagine your shield thicker or harder. As hard as steel. You can do it, Bella."

The soldier fired again and Bella winced. "Ouch."

"Too much strain?"

"No. I can feel the bullet as it passes through," she said. "It burns."

"Really?" He seemed quite interested by this revelation. "Well, think of it as the 'stick'. Come on, Bella. You can do this. Concentrate. Don't focus on where the round is going to hit. Focus on making your shield diamond-hard all over."

"Could I really make it bounce off?"

He nodded. "I've seen others be able to do it and you are more talented than they were. You just need to _believe_ that you can."

Jacob was disappointed at the end of the session that Bella still hadn't managed it. "No cookie," he announced.

Was it crazy that she was a little upset by that? It had become a little ritual at the end of their sessions and Bella always giggled when he gravely took the Oreo from the bag and presented it to her like it was a gold medal. Bella mentally shook her head as he led her back to her suite. She had a feeling that Jacob was even smarter than she gave him credit for, making her like him so she'd be sorry to disappoint him. Was he using her own personality to manipulate her?

He grinned, and that strange feeling that he could read her mind returned. "Don't worry, Bella. We'll try again tomorrow. I'm sure you'll get the knack of it soon."

A few weeks later, she had graduated to being able to shield multiple objects from bullets. She secretly wished they move on to something else because she could still feel the bullets striking her shield, like wasp stings inside her head. Too many of them and she'd lose her concentration and the shields would go down and a headache would come on. She knew Jacob was trying to strengthen her by practice, like she was able to lift heavier and heavier objects without strain, but the pain never went away.

"We're going bigger tomorrow," he said one evening after she'd managed to shield three targets from multiple soldiers with hand guns. He seemed excited by the prospect and Bella managed to give him a smile, though she wasn't quite as enthusiastic.

Alice pulled her aside after dinner. "Bella, stay in bed tomorrow."

"Why?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. I'm seeing some weird stuff."

Bella was skeptical, to say the least. Alice's visions weren't entirely reliable. She saw multiple possibilities, which changed every time someone made a decision, no matter how minute. Many of her predictions never came to pass and a lot of things slipped by her, unseen.

Still, Bella was tired after yesterday's efforts and decided that it wouldn't hurt to take a day off. She was still in bed when Jacob arrived, carrying a large bag in one hand. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't feel well," she replied.

He tilted his head, looking at her with the same skepticism which must have been on her face when she listened to Alice last night. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I think I'll just sleep today and maybe I'll feel better tomorrow."

"That's a shame," Jacob said. "Because we were going to go outside today."

Bella bolted upright. "Really?"

"Yep. Too bad you're under the weather."

Bella threw aside the covers. "I want to go."

He smirked. "Thought you would." He handed her the bag, which contained a thick day-glo orange parka, insulated leggings and a pair of snow boots. A scarf, thick gloves and toboggan lay in the bottom of the bag. She donned them quickly, her heart pounding with excitement. She was going outside! She felt like a little kid on a snow day.

He led her down the hall, past the research rooms and through a locked steel door (this one painted gray, thankfully.) Down a short hallway, they came to another door, which led to a stairwell with cinderblock walls. They climbed four flights of metal stairs to the top, and Bella was puffing by the time they reached it. A few months of no exercise and she had turned into a weakling. She really needed to try jogging up and down the hallways or doing jumping jacks in her room or something. This was pathetic.

"Oh, almost forgot," Jacob said. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a pair of goggles. "You'll need them," he said. "The sun is hella bright up there."

Bella snorted. "Did you just say '_hella_'?"

"Look kid, you're pushing into 'no cookie' territory, here."

"Sorry, sorry," Bella said. She pulled the goggles on and then pulled up her hood. It was edged with thick fur. Jacob opened the door, and even behind the goggles, Bella's eyes hurt from the brilliance of the sun reflected off the snow. She turned in a slow circle, looking around.

Only a small section of the facility was visible from the ground. It was a small structure, snow mounded on three sides, with a plain set of doors, wide enough to admit a truck. Three large antennas and a satellite dish were on the roof of the building. And that was the only thing visible for miles. Flat snow stretched all the way to the horizon in every direction. One of Bella's stops on her journey to avoid "them" had been in Kansas, and she remembered how she'd been awed by the prairie, nothing but a sea of waving grass, as far as the eyes could see, at the vastness of the sky above.

To her left sat some sort of military vehicle on tracks, a strange truck-like thing, painted with the standard camouflage, ironically ineffective in this environment. Jacob walked over to it and opened the door. He reached inside and withdrew a ginger kitten with blue eyes.

There's nothing cuter on the face of the earth than a baby kitten. Jacob handed it to her and Bella cooed and awwed over it, snuggling the tiny, shivering thing against her neck. "Oh, the poor baby's freezing!" she cried.

"I'll put her back inside where it's warm." Jacob took the kitten from her and put it back inside a box in the vehicle, closing the door with a thump.

"Where'd you get her? Who is she for?" _Say me! Say me!_

"She's the 'stick' today," Jacob said.

"W-what do you mean?"

Jacob pointed to the soldiers exiting the building. "Those guys are going to shoot at this vehicle. Your job is to protect that kitten."

Bella gaped at him. "Jacob, that's awful!" Surely, he wasn't serious.

"I _am_ serious," Jacob said, confirming what she'd suspected all along about his mind-reading abilities. "It's time to step up the game, Bella. "I know you can do it if you really try."

_You are an asshole_, Bella thought.

He laughed. "You're not the first person to come to that conclusion. Come on, Bella. Save the kitty."

He gave a sharp chop of his arm and the soldiers began to fire. Bella threw up her shield, her hands clapped over her ears. She gritted her teeth at the sharp stings, trying to ignore the pain. _Breathe through it. Just breathe through it._ Her puffs of breath misted in the icy air.

"Second stage," Jacob called, and the sound of the guns changed from the tap-tap-tap of semi-automatic handguns to the rattle of machine gun fire. Bella groaned. Stabs of fire, red spots behind her eyelids.

"Come on, Bella. You're letting some through. That poor kitten is counting on you." Jacob voice was cruelly cheerful. She pushed harder and her head began to pound in time with the sound of the shots.

"Third stage," Jacob called and a tremendous shockwave slammed through Bella's head even before she heard the explosion. Blood poured from her nose. She fell to her knees. _An RPG? You made me shield against a goddam RPG?_

"I knew you could do it," Jacob said, pride in his tone. "Bella, you did great! Kitten is just fine."

"Fuck you and your cookie," Bella said, and fell face-forward into the snow.

* * *

><p>Dr. Jacob Black whistled as he entered his office. He'd had an excellent session with Isabella Swan today. The live fire exercise this afternoon had been extraordinary, the greatest display of psi-powers he had ever seen. He felt privileged to have been a part of it, honored to have such an amazing creature as Bella under his tutelage. Jacob had sent the video to his superiors in Washington as soon as he'd returned from taking a shaking and unsteady Bella back to her apartment. His only regret was having to tell her "no" when she'd asked if she could keep the kitten. No pets allowed in the facility, and making Bella an exception would only make her a target of the other resident's jealously and resentment. They were very sensitive to favoritism.<p>

He had an e-mail waiting. He opened it and stopped whistling in mid note.

..

FROM: GEN. ARO VOLTURI  
>TO: DR. J. BLACK, THETA PROJECT GEN. DIR<p>

REVISED ORDERS AS FOLLOWS: TERMINATE TEST SUBJECT 1279-A IMMEDIATELY.

END MESSAGE.

..

Jacob read it twice more and shook his head in disbelief. He picked up the phone, the only one in the facility which had the ability to dial out and punched in his access code. When he got a dial-tone, he entered a long telephone number, a direct line for General Volturi.

He picked up on the second ring. "I thought you would be calling me," the general said.

"I can't believe my eyes. Aro, what the fuck? Didn't you see the video I sent you?"

"That video is the reason for the termination," Aro replied. "Watch it again, and this time, see it from our perspective. Yes, she's amazing, and will likely get even stronger. And that's what worries us. She's _too_ powerful. She's reaching the point of being uncontrollable, Jake, and as soon as she realizes it, the entire project is at risk. Think of what could happen if she goes rogue, or is captured by one of our enemies."

"This is bullshit," Jacob protested. "Look, just let me keep her here. We'll never use her for the Cobra Program. She's the strongest talent I've ever found, Aro, a fucking_-_."

Aro cut him off. "This comes directly from the Big Guy."

Jacob's heart sank.

"He's not going to change his mind, Jacob. You have your orders. Do it now, and do it fast, and do it from behind where she doesn't see you coming."

Jacob slammed the phone back into its cradle and laid his head on his desk. _Fuck!_

He knew better than to get attached to his test subjects because an order like this could come at any time. At any time, the Big Guy could decide to end it and they would take all of the residents topside and execute them one-by-one, before setting off the facility's self-destruct system. It was an unavoidable eventuality: Project Theta would end in flames and blood. He had always known it and accepted it as the price that would be paid for the advancement of scientific knowledge. Hell, his _own_ number could be called at any time if they questioned his loyalty or thought he knew too much. Jacob accepted that, too, as a price he was willing to pay. The things they were learning about the human brain and its potential could some day change the world.

But, dammit, he _liked_ Bella. He liked her and he respected her and he wanted to see where she could go with that amazing talent of hers, because if there was an upper limit, they hadn't found it yet.

But he had no choice. If he refused, he'd find himself kneeling in the snow beside her.

He sighed and pulled open his desk drawer where his Glock was stored.

* * *

><p>Bella was sleeping fitfully, the pain in her head too severe to allow her to do more than doze between the waves. The medication had helped, a bit, but she didn't think that there were any drugs strong enough to take it away completely. She might have really done it this time, given herself brain damage, maybe fried out her talent. She decided she wouldn't be sorry to see it go.<p>

Her suite's door opened, and Jacob entered with two stone-faced soldiers flanking him.

"Ja... wha?" she managed.

"Come on, Bella," He said. He lifted her from the bed into his arms and carried her out of the suite and down the hall. As they went through the rec room, Bella caught a glimpse of Alice's face, tears streaking down her cheeks. They went past the cafeteria and down the hallway which led to the last place Bella wanted to go. The yellow door.

The door that Quil said none who passed through it ever returned. Bella moaned, but she could do more than kick feebly and wiggle a little. They entered an elevator and Jacob punched the top button. Cheerful Musak played in the background, a jaunty jazz number. The elevator rose swiftly, and Bella's stomach tried to stay behind. It made her head pound even more fiercely. She closed her eyes and heard doors open and shut as Jacob walked.

Cold. It was cold. They were outside.

Jacob put Bella down, sitting in the snow in her scrubs and bare feet. She shivered. She was going to die out here on this frozen prairie. Her eyes traveled up the side of the building and she saw a chimney. Her final destination. Jacob pulled a gun from the back of his pants and pulled the slide, releasing it to chamber a bullet.

Bella stared up at him. Though she knew it was futile, she tried to throw up a shield and fresh blood gushed from her nose, shockingly bright where it landed on the snow.

"I'm sorry," Jacob said. He lifted the gun.

_WHAM!_ Something slammed into him, knocking him off his feet and against the wall of the building and he slumped, bonelessly, to the ground. Whatever it was, it moved too fast for Bella's eyes to track, ramming into one of the soldiers and wresting his gun from his hands, and then into the second before the soldier could even lift his gun from his side. Jacob and the two soldiers lay silent and still in the snow.

A man stood before her, a man so beautiful that it almost hurt to look at him. Auburn hair and brilliant green eyes over a chiseled face of perfect symmetry. And he had ... _wings._

White wings with wide feathers. They flexed under her gaze.

"Bella," he said, his voice soft and warm. He knelt and picked her up, holding her high against his chest. He wrapped the wings around her, shutting out the icy wind, shutting out everything. He lowered that beautiful face and kissed her. Bella closed her eyes and welcomed it, parting her lips for the hot slide of his tongue against her own. Maybe she was dead. Maybe Jacob had shot her and this was heaven. But she felt amazingly, shockingly _alive_ at this moment.

He drew back, giving her lips a little peck. "I've waited over twenty years to do that," he said softly. And then he bent his knees and jumped, those powerful wings thrashing against the frigid air, lifting them into the sky. Bella watched the three men lying in the snow become smaller and smaller until they disappeared behind a cloud.

And then she blacked out.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This story is set in an alternative universe. God, the devil, angels, etc. are treated as **_fictional characters_**. The story is not meant to reflect or disparage any sort of real belief system.

* * *

><p>Chapter Three<p>

..

Bella woke and found herself lying naked in the arms of a beautiful man, a man who also happened to be naked. He laid partially atop her, on his side, his body intimately pressed against hers, their legs tangled, his arms wrapped around her. For a moment, Bella allowed herself to drink in the delicious sensation of skin on skin.

_Who is this guy_? she wondered. She studied his face for a moment. He looked familiar, but she couldn't place him. She studied his wings, folded against his back, their feathers blinding white. The part which extended above his shoulders was a joint, as thick as a knee, covered in soft down. She didn't _feel_ crazy, and she didn't think that people in heaven would have a splitting headache like she did. She tried to think of a logical explanation and failed.

She glanced around the room. There wasn't much detail that might reveal where they were. She saw off-white walls and a wood floor. The bed in which they lay was small, with a wrought iron headboard. There was a little balcony, its glass door closed and the curtain partially drawn, but from this angle, she couldn't see anything of the outside that might give her clues.

She brought her gaze back to the ... man, the creature, beside her. Could the wings be a hallucination of some kind? Fake? She reached up a hand and touched one of the wings. It was solid, warm and silky soft against her fingertips. As soon as she touched it, his eyes opened. He smiled sweetly, his eyes warm and tender. "Bella," he said.

"H- hi," she stammered.

"Mmm." He closed his eyes and snuggled in closer.

"Um, could you ... uh ... could you let me go, please?"

He opened his eyes and lifted his head again. "Why? This is very comfortable."

"You- you're _naked_," Bella said.

He chucked and laid his head back down. "Your powers of observation always were stellar."

She froze. "You ... _know_ me?"

He smiled again and Bella felt her heart speed up. No man should be that gorgeous. "Yes, I know you, Bella. I've known you since the day you were born."

Her breath caught. "Who _are_ you?" And then it dawned on her, and she realized where she'd seen him before. He was that actor, that guy who had been in those vampire movies that were so popular a few years ago. She struggled to remember his name. "Edward?" she asked tentatively, not sure what the actor's name was, but 'Edward' sounded right. Had she really been rescued by an _actor_... an actor who had _wings_?

He shrugged. "You can call me that if you like."

"I want to know your real name."

He shrugged again. "I don't have one. You pick."

"How can you not have a name?" Bella demanded. It was preposterous.

He sat up, untangling himself from her limbs, and yawned. "Never needed one."

She decided to try a different approach. "_What_ are you?"

He locked eyes with hers. "I'm _yours_."

She had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

He flexed his wings, arching his back in a stretch. Her heart pounded even faster and her mouth went dry. This man was truly a work of art, perfection made flesh. "Your kind call us 'angels'," he offered. "I guess it's as good a word as any."

"So, you're ... my guardian angel or something?"

He laid back down beside her and reached out a hand to cup her cheek. She jumped a little when he touched her, her breath catching in her throat. His green eyes were so warm. She could have stared into them all day. "Yes, Bella. I was sent here to protect you." He traced her cheekbone with his thumb.

She tried to keep focused on the conversation, tried to keep from drowning in those amazing eyes. "What did I do to merit my own angel?"

"Everyone has one," he said. His voice was melodious, soothing, lulling. "But it's rare that we're allowed to come to Earth and be with our human."

"Wh- why then?" she asked. "Why are you here?"

"Because you have an important task, Bella, something that you're supposed to do. I was sent to protect you, to make sure you're able to do it."

"Do you know what it is?"

He shook his head. "I wasn't told. I'm not supposed to know."

"If angels aren't allowed to come to earth, what do they do?" He was still stroking her face and it made it hard to breathe.

"We try to guide you, to comfort you, to make you feel you're not alone. We whisper to our human's heart. You can hear us, but you have to be willing to listen."

"You really have been watching over me since I was a baby?"

He nodded. "I was created the same day you were."

"Do you all ... look like you do?"

He shook his head. "I picked this appearance because I remembered you thought that the actor was attractive. I can change it, if you'd like something else."

"You want me to, um, find you attractive?"

He smiled. "Of course I do. I want you to love me as I love you."

Her mouth fell open a little. "When you say 'love', do you mean romantic love or-" She searched for a word to describe it. "... like, um, 'brotherly love'?"

He grinned. He lowered his face until his lips were only a millimeter from her own. "I burn for you," he whispered.

She was shocked. And more than a bit turned-on. "I ... uh ... thought angels didn't have those kinds of desires."

He leaned back to his original position and she could breathe a bit better. "Oh? Have you ever met an angel?"

"Well, no, but in the movies ..."

He snickered. "Always a reliable source of factual information."

She blushed. 'Yeah, okay, you got me there. But the religions ..." She tried to remember what she'd learned in Sunday School about angels. They were supposed to be pure and holy, God's messengers and warriors. White robes and halos and all that. They weren't supposed to lay naked in bed with women and grin like they had a mind full of dirty thoughts.

"Religions were created by _people_, Bella. People who viewed the message through a lens of their own culture and made their culture's rules and taboos into divine law."

Which she interpreted as him saying that angels weren't so pure after all.

He laughed softly and reached inside the little table by the bed. He pulled out the Bible that was apparently standard in hotel rooms all over the world. He flipped to a page near the front. It was printed in Spanish, but he read it aloud in English. _"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown._"

She had never heard of that passage. "Angels had kids with humans? _Giant_ kids?"

He laid the Bible aside. "Well, like a lot of stories that got handed down orally for thousands of years before being written down, there were some ... alterations. We can't have children with humans, and the 'giants' were probably their explanations for fossilized bones they found, but the general gist of it is that some angels did come to earth to be with their humans, the 'men of renown' who did something important. And, what's more, people knew about it."

She wanted to get off the subject of angel sex. She hastily changed the subject. "Where are we, exactly?"

"Ushuaia, Argentina," he said. "I'm sorry that I couldn't get us any farther, but I was exhausted. I'm not used to the gravity and thick air down here."

It impressed upon her again that he was from _somewhere else_, another plane of existence where even the gravity was different. "How long are you here for?" she asked. Maybe he would have time to get used to it.

"I can't go back," he said.

She gasped. "_Never_?"

"Not until you go." And she blinked because by "go" he obviously meant he was stuck here until she died.

"You have to follow me around for the rest of my life? You can't leave?"

He glanced away, but not before she saw the hurt in his eyes. "If you don't want me here, Bella, I can disappear. You'll never know I'm around."

"I didn't mean it that way," Bella protested. "I meant that you must be sad to not be able to go back to Heaven."

His eyes came back to her, glittering, intense. "If you ask any of us whether we'd prefer to stay in Heaven or be with our human, we'd all choose to leave, even knowing we cannot return until our human passes over."

So, loving their human was something automatic with them. Bella felt strangely disappointed.

He shook his head. "We all love our humans and we want to be with them, here on Earth, so we can take care of them, but not like this. I always knew I'd fall in love with you, and I've waited so long to be able to hold you like this, to touch you, to breathe in your scent."

_Twenty years?_

He nodded, and again answered her thoughts. "Our time moves differently than yours."

So he was a mind reader like Jacob.

"Only yours," he answered. "Our souls are bound, Bella. I have heard every thought you ever had."

Bella's face burned. She really didn't really like that idea, especially considering some of the thoughts she'd had about him.

"Don't be embarrassed," he said softly. "Bella, I've loved being a part of your mind. I love the way you think."

A change of subject was definitely called for. As if on cue, her stomach growled. "You're hungry!" he said brightly, "It's time to eat!"

"You sound sort of ... excited about that."

"I've never eaten before," he said. "I can't wait to try it." And then his eyes darkened and he lowered his head again, his lips a hair's breadth from hers. "There are a _lot_ of things I am looking forward to trying with you."

Bella shivered. She couldn't help herself. She lifted her head to cross that fraction of an inch between them and kissed him. He made a soft sound in the back of his throat and threaded his arms around her, his hand cupping the back of her head.

Bella could count on one hand the number of times she'd been kissed in her life and none of them had ever felt like this. She hadn't believed that a kiss like this existed outside of the realm of fiction, a kiss she could feel through her entire body, a kiss that melted her bones and caused pleasure to knot inside her.

He drew back from her and she heard herself make a protesting noise. He gave her another tiny peck on the lips. "Soon," he promised. "You're not ready yet."He stood, and held a hand out to her. "Let's go get some breakfast."

She could only gape at his naked glory. Her eyes traveled down his body and widened a little. She glanced away hastily, her face pink and heard him chuckle softly.

She took the sheet with her when she got out of the bed. "Where are my clothes?"

"I hung them up to dry," he said. He slid open the glass door and chill air swept through the room. He strolled out to the balcony. "Edward!" Bella screeched.

"What?"

"You're _naked_!"

He blinked at her.

"Get inside before someone sees you and calls the cops!"

"Oh! Right." He snatched the clothes off the railing and stepped back inside. He looked down at his body with interest. "Well, would you look at that!"

Shrinkage was apparently a new experience for him as well. Bella's face was beet red. She snatched her clothes from his hand. They were dry but cold clung to the fabric. Bella yanked on her clothing as fast as she could. Even though she kept her eyes fastened to the floor, she was sure he was watching. She could feel his gaze on her, like feathers brushing her skin.

She looked up to see Edward dressed in a black hoodie and jeans, his wings startlingly white against the dark color. She walked around behind him and saw that he had cut two large slits in the back of the hoodie. The feathers up near the top where his wing joined with his back were crumpled, caught inside. She straightened them out and he sighed. "Thank you. That was bugging me but I couldn't reach."

"We can't walk around in public with your wings showing," Bella said, and started thinking of the ways they could conceal them. Perhaps they could get some kind of large duffel bag, which he could wear like a backpack, with his wings tucked inside.

He smiled. "No one can see them but you, Bella."

Then the world was truly deprived of a beautiful sight. They gleamed like a pearl in the light streaming through the window. She looked down at her bare feet. "I don't have any shoes."

"Oh, that's right. People wear shoes." He seemed to be making a mental note of that fact. He wiggled his own bare feet. "I forgot them."

"Can't you, just ... you know ... _poof_ some into existence?"

He laughed. "You have seen _way_ too many movies. What's the first law of thermodynamics?"

"Matter or its energy equivalent can be neither created nor destroyed," Bella recited.

"See? I told you that paying attention in your physics classes would come in handy."

"We'll have to buy some, then," she said. "We can't go around barefoot."

He shuffled awkwardly. "We don't have much money. I was able to get what was left in your bank account, but there's not a lot."

She was curious. "How did you withdraw it?"

"I went to your bank, invisible, and took it out of a teller's cash drawer. I left a note saying which account it was from." He looked worried. "Was that wrong? I know they wouldn't have let me have it if I asked. So, I left the note. That wasn't stealing, was it?"

He looked so worried that she had to soothe him. "No, Edward, that's fine. A bit unorthodox, but you were honest. How much did this room cost?"

He looked guilty, a flush appearing on his cheekbones. "I didn't exactly ... pay for it. I found one that was empty. It wasn't being used. Is _that_ stealing?"

She thought about it. "Well, if they weren't going to get any money from it anyway, I suppose not. Maybe we can leave a tip to cover the cleaning costs or something. How much do we have?"

Edward pulled the money from his pocket. "I had to buy the clothes I'm wearing," he confessed. "They cost ten dollars. I did it the same way I did at the bank." He started counting the money.

"Ten dollars? That's a bargain," Bella praised. He smiled at her, pleased, and then went back to counting.

"One hundred twenty-one dollars and fifteen cents," he announced.

_Oh, shit_. They weren't going to get very far on that.

"We don't have to pay to travel," Edward said. "I will fly us wherever you want to go."

"Even if we're just paying for food and lodging, that money won't last long."

"I don't need to eat," he offered.

"Won't you be hungry?"

"Yes, but I won't starve. I'm not mortal."

She couldn't stand the idea of him being hungry, even if he didn't really need food to survive. She chewed on a fingernail, considering. The obvious solution was to contact Jasper, but how? It was a certainty that "they" would have Jasper's phone bugged, expecting her to call him. An idea occurred to her: Jasper went to Benny's Pub every Wednesday night to play darts. She could call him there.

"That's a good idea," Edward said. She jumped a little. It was odd to hear someone respond to her thoughts as if she'd spoken them aloud. "Can I buy you some shoes now?"

"Sure. Size seven. Wait- That's the American size. I don't know what size I'd be here."

Edward knelt and lifted her foot, holding it in his hands. He surveyed it critically, measuring it against his palms. "I think I've got it," he said.

"You're going to get some for yourself, aren't you?"

He hesitated.

"Edward, you can't go around barefoot," Bella insisted. "Jasper will wire some money to me. We'll be fine."

"All right. Wait in here until I come back." He leaned down and kissed her again before he left.

The room was in an American-style hotel, which meant it had its own bathroom. Bella used it and then stood before the mirror, trying to comb her hair out with her fingers as best she could. She noticed that there were spots of dried blood on the front of her scrubs top. She used a washcloth and soap to try to scrub it out, but to no avail. "Out damned spot," she quoted. Oh, well. At least it was a little lighter.

She heard the door open and peeked out to make sure it was Edward before going back out to the bedroom. He carried a bag in one hand, which he dropped when he saw her. He held out his arms and Bella went to him happily, laying her cheek on his chest as he first wrapped his arms around her and then his wings. She was starting to love that. They muffled sound and light, creating their own little private world inside. "I wanted you to know something," he said softly. "I fell in love with you the summer that you worked at the nursing home. I had always loved you, like our kind do, but this was something different. Something special. I'd always known that I would, but nothing could have prepared me for how powerful it was."

That had been the summer of her senior year, right before Tyler had ...

"I'm glad you killed him," Edward said, his eyes blazing green flames. "He was evil."

"Do evil people have angels?" Bella asked.

"Some of them," Edward replied. "A person doesn't usually turn evil overnight. It's a gradual process. Their angel, unwanted and ignored, can fade away if they give in to despair. But sometimes, the angel goes with them, becomes twisted as they are. They're cast out, become the Fallen, but they still can't contact their human. They exist in limbo here on Earth, a hellish existence of constant hunger they cannot sate, until their human either dies or they give up and fade away."

"Is there a hell?"

He nodded, his face grim. He said no more and Bella didn't want to ask, not now. She shivered and he held her a little closer. He kissed her forehead and then pecked her lips. "Come, see what I bought."

There were two pairs of shoes in the bag. Bella's were brown suede sneakers with a swoosh on the side, and Edward's were hiking boots, which Bella thought was an odd choice.

"I liked them," he said simply.

He had also bought her a gray down-filled parka. "Oh, Edward, thank you. That was very considerate of you."

"I didn't want you to be cold," he said. "There is a pair of gloves in the pocket."

She was afraid to ask how much everything cost. "Not much," Edward answered. "Forty dollars. American money goes a long way here." Are you ready to go get breakfast?"

She smiled. "I am." She put on the shoes and they fit perfectly. Edward slid his feet inside his boots and tugged at the upper laces. He frowned.

"You have to do it this way," Bella instructed, showing him how to pull out the lower laces and work the slack up to the top.

"I should have gotten tennis shoes," he said. "They are not as complicated." He stood and stomped around, trying out the sensation of having shoes on his feet. He looked up from his feet and smiled at her. "Squishy," he announced.

"Let's go. I'm hungry." Bella started for the door but he caught her hand.

"Let's go through the balcony door," he said. "There are maids' carts in the hall."

He left a ten dollar bill on the table and slid open the glass door, closing it behind them. They were three stories up. Bella closed her eyes. She did not like heights.

"Ready?" Edward asked. He picked her up, one arm beneath her knees and the other under her shoulders. She wound her arms around his neck and held on tightly. She hid her face in his neck and nodded.

He climbed up the railing and jumped, his wings catching the air and settling them into a smooth glide.

"Where are we going?" Bella asked. _Don't look down. Don't look down._ She felt him flap his wings once, twice, giving them more lift.

"I found out there's an American-style restaurant on the other side of town. I thought you would like that."

It was going to be his first experience with food but his selection of a place to eat was based on her preferences. He banked, turning them in a wide circle before drifting to the ground. His landing was as smooth as though he were stepping down from a curb.

"How do you avoid us being seen?" she asked.

"I can be invisible, remember? I can make you invisible too, while I'm flying, but it takes a lot of effort." He stood her on her feet and pointed across the street at a building that had the familiar name of an American chain restaurant emblazoned on its wall. "Perfect!" Bella declared and he beamed at her praise.

The hostess and their waitress spoke English and they were given English menus. Edward slowly flipped through the pages, staring at the pictures. "I don't know what to get."

"I do," Bella said. "Trust me."

She ordered bacon, eggs over-easy, fried potatoes and pancakes, along with a pot of tea for both of them. She prepared prepared a cup for him, adding sugar and a splash of cold water from her glass so he wouldn't scald himself. She pushed it across the table to him. "Drink," she said.

He picked it up and sniffed at the cup's contents before taking a sip. His eyes widened and he took a larger drink. "This is good!" he said. He took one of the sugar packages and tore it open, pouring the contents into the palm of his hand. He licked a finger and poked it into the grains and gave it a lick. His eyes widened again and he looked positively delighted. "Taste!" he said, holding his finger out to Bella.

She chucked. "I know what sugar tastes like."

He took all of the packets out of the rack and ripped their tops off one by one, pouring it all into his tea. "Edward, you'll make it too sweet," Bella warned. But he gulped down the contents of the cup and said, "More?"

She refilled his cup from the teapot and he grabbed it before she could add the cold water. He took a gulp and yelped.

"Too hot," Bella said. "You didn't give me a chance to warn you." She added a splash of cold water. Edward eyed the rack where the sugar packets had been stored. "What is the pink stuff?"

"Artificial sweetener," Bella replied. "I don't like the way it tastes, but give it a try."

He opened a packet and poured out the powder into his palm. He touched a finger to it and licked it off. Bella's insides clenched as she watched his tongue.

"Blech!" he said, his face wrinkling. He hastily dumped the rest of the powder into the saucer under the teapot, brushing off his hand with the other.

Bella looked around. They were the only ones seated in this section. She used her talent to lift the sugar packets out of the rack on another table and floated them to him. It made her headache a little bit worse and she was surprised when he winced.

"You can feel my headache?" she asked.

He nodded. "We share it. I've never felt pain before."

Her reply was halted by the appearance of their waitress, who laid multiple plates on the table and a little jug of syrup. Edward inhaled, closing his eyes. "It smells wonderful," he said.

Bella thanked her and waited until she departed. "What do you want to try first?"

He shook his head slowly. "I'm not sure."

"Pancakes," she decided. He'd liked the sugar. "Let me prepare you a bite." She smeared butter on a small section and doused it with syrup, cutting off a bite with the side of the fork and then spearing it with the tines. "Open," she commanded. He did, and she fed him the piece of pancake.

His eyes widened with shock and he sat motionless for a moment.

"Chew," Bella told him.

He did, slowly, that stunned look still in place. He swallowed and shook his head in wonderment. "Bella, that's _amazing_," he breathed.

She broke off a piece of bacon next and thought he was going to cry. "Is all food like this?" he asked.

"No. Bacon is one of the pinnacles of human culinary experience," Bella said. "Nature played a cruel joke on us: if it's tasty, it's bad for you. The stuff that's healthy doesn't taste anywhere _near_ this good."

He froze in mid chew. "Bella, he said softly. "Get under the table."

"Huh?"

"Quick, Bella, hide!"

She obeyed, ducking under the table and crawling over to clutch his leg, hiding her face against his knee. His hand slid down to rest on her head, his fingers gently stroking her, as if in reassurance.

She saw a pair of legs in dark pants approach the table. It was one of "them". Her heart pounded so hard she was surprised he couldn't hear it. He asked Edward something in Spanish, and Edward replied, perfectly fluent, rattling off a reply in that melodious voice of his. There was a short exchange of conversation and the legs retreated. "Stay for a moment longer," Edward whispered to Bella.

No problem. She didn't want to come out. She would live happily down here with the crumbs if she was safe from "them." He had to coax her out and when she finally emerged, she went straight into his arms.

"You're trembling," he said softly, bushing her hair back from her face and tucking it behind her ear.

"What did he say?"

"He had a picture of you. He said that you're wanted in connection with a terrorist attack."

"Promise me," she whispered. "Promise me you won't ever let them take me back. Promise me. Even if you have to ... "

"Bella ..." he looked down into her eyes with anguish writ upon his features.

"Promise me," she insisted.

"I promise." He bent his head and kissed her.

The waitress cleared her throat. She had their check in her was looking at Bella oddly, studying her features. Bella's heart sped up. Edward had given her the money to hold, so she quickly counted out enough to cover the bill and the tip. "Keep the change," Bella said.

She grabbed Edward's hand as soon as the waitress turned to walk away. "We have to go," she whispered urgently. "I think she recognized me."

He glanced around. "Wait here."

He walked quickly to the vestibule and scanned the front. He was back at her side in moments. "Let's find another door," he said.

"Did you see one of 'them'?" she asked.

"No, but I'm still not comfortable with leaving that way."

They went around to the back, where the kitchen and restrooms were located. There was a glowing EXIT sign and Edward headed straight for it. "Wait! It's a fire door," Bella said. "If you hit that bar it will-"

A shrill screeching alarm went off as Edward pushed it open. They were between a dumpster and a van, out of sight . Edward lifted Bella into his arms and launched them upward, his wings beating steadily at the air until they were high enough for him to catch the thermals and glide. Bella clung tightly to his neck. They were over the hills behind the city, headed toward the snow-capped mountain ridges.

"I liked breakfast," Edward said suddenly.

Bella laughed. "I'm glad." The laughter died as quickly as it came as a sobering thought occurred to her. "They're not going to let me go, are they?"

"No."

They'd always found her before. Now that they were really putting effort into it ...

"Stop," Edward said. "You're beginning to despair."

"How can I help it?" she asked.

"I am with you," he said simply. And she supposed that was enough.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

..

Bella must have fallen asleep while Edward was flying because she woke up in another hotel bed, hearing the sound of water running in the attached bathroom. Edward came out, positively gleeful. "Guess what I did?"

Bella burst out laughing. "I don't think I want to know._ Really_, I don't."

He sat down on the edge of the bed. "Sorry. It's just that these are all new experiences for me, and I want to share them with the woman I love."

"That's sweet, Edward, but maybe there are some things that maybe _shouldn't_ be shared."

Edward grinned. "All right. I understand. No bathroom stuff. I want to take a shower next. Will you join me?"

"No, I don't think that's a good idea," Bella said. Unbidden, an image of Edward, his skin coated with water droplets, water sluicing over his chest and abs, overtook her mind. His grin widened. Sometimes, she really hated having him know what she was thinking. Her face heated and she fastened her eyes to the loud pattern on the nylon bedspread.

"I know you want to." He bounced on the edge of the bed, an infectious, playful grin on his face. "Come on ... Come on ..."

He'd seen her naked before, after all. But still ... Bella hesitated.

"Please?" he begged. She looked up at him and he gave her puppy-dog eyes.

Her heart pounded and her stomach tingled with excitement. He was right: she did want to. So, what was holding her back?

"I'll behave, I swear," Edward said.

"All right," she said. He eagerly took her hand and pulled her up to her feet.

"Where are we?" She looked around the sparse hotel room and didn't even see a window. That reminded her uncomfortably of the facility.

"Argentina, still," he replied. "I'm sorry I can't get us further, but I'm afraid to use up all of my energy in case something happens after we land. After I get used to the gravity-"

"Edward, it's all right. You don't have to apologize."

"Our headache is gone at least," he said brightly.

"How is it that you could feel my headaches, anyway?"

"I shared it with you to make it less painful for you," he said. "I can't take it all, but I can take half of it for you."

Her eyes stung with sudden tears. "Edward, you don't have to do that."

"Yes, I do," he said, his beautiful green eyes glimmering. "That's what I'm made for, and you don't know how happy it makes me that I"m finally able to do it after all these years."

The bathroom was tiny. Once she shut the door, there was barely room to stand on the floor with Edward. He backed up until his legs were against the toilet bowl and she was still pressed up against him. His left wing knocked over the little plastic coffee maker on the vanity and he winced at the clatter it made, falling into the sink. "Sorry."

"Let me handle the water," she said. She had an awful vision of him stepping into a scalding stream and burning himself. They did a little shuffling dance to pass one another and Edward's other wing swept all the towels from the rack. "Sorry!" he said again. Bella bent to pick them and banged her head on the counter. Edward was the one who yelped, and he bent to try to help her up at the exact moment she straightened upright. She banged her head against his chin, lost her balance and fell backwards into the tub, pulling him down on top of her.

Edward helped her up and Bella loved him a little for not laughing at her. She cried out when she saw a couple of feathers lying on the floor. "Oh no!" She picked them up and held them in her hand, wondering if there was some way to reattach them.

"It's all right, Bella," he told her. "Really, it is. Birds lose feathers all the time, right?"

"But you're not a bird. Do angels shed feathers?"

He hesitated. "Well, no, but if we lose them, they'll grow back. Honestly, it's not a big deal."

She still felt like she'd injured him. "What should I do with these?"

He shrugged. "Toss them in the trash."

That seemed just _wrong_, for some reason. "They'll disintegrate within twenty-four hours," Edward told her. He took them from her hand and threw them away himself.

She needn't have worried about the water. Even at its hottest, the temperature was barely more than tepid.

Edward stripped off his clothes and Bella abruptly lost her nerve. "I think I'll just sit out here and talk to you," she said, lowering the toilet seat and lid and sitting down upon it. (Apparently, like every man, Edward would have to be trained to put the seat back down.)

He knelt so their faces were on level. "Do you think I would ever do anything you didn't want me to do? I'm in your mind, Bella. I know what makes you uncomfortable, and what makes you nervous. And I'm not selfish enough to make you feel that way by pushing you. "

With that, he rose and stepped into the shower. The water had warmed enough to make the bathroom steamy. He groaned in pleasure when it hit his back, between his wings. He folded them tightly to fit in the tiny space, but every now and then a bit of wing peeked out of the shower curtain.

Bella rose and took off her clothes. With a deep breath, she stepped inside with him. He gave her the sweetest smile and a washcloth already soaped. Bella washed quickly. Edward squeezed against the side of the stall so she could get under the stream of water to rinse. Even though it wasn't as hot as she liked, it felt nice. She leaned her head back under the stream, soaking her hair.

"May I wash your hair?" he asked. "You always enjoyed that when you went to a salon."

She nodded and passed him the little bottle of shampoo. He poured a little into his hands and rubbed it through her hair. His strong fingers massaged her scalp and Bella thought it was a wonder she didn't melt and slide right down the drain.

She felt a poke and froze. He chuckled. "Sorry, can't help it."

"Um, maybe I'd better rinse now," Bella said. She backed up and tilted her head back under the water, which was rapidly cooling. When she finished, she scraped the water from her face with her hand and saw that he had re-washed himself, apparently for the sheer enjoyment of it. She stepped aside so he could rinse again. "Do you wash your wings?" she asked.

He blinked. "I hadn't planned on it. Why? Do they look dirty?"

"No, I was just wondering how you took care of them."

"I was told not to get soap on them or it will cut the oil in my feathers and make them brittle. I preen them. I'll show you." He rinsed quickly and they both climbed out of the shower.

"Bella?" he said softly as she rolled her hair up into a towel, "Thank you for sharing that with me."

"Thank you for washing my hair. It felt really nice."

He sat down on the bed, wearing only his towel. Bella redressed in her scrubs, the only clothing she had. She washed her underthings in the sink and rolled them up in a towel to sit on the radiator to dry.

When she came back into the bedroom, he was preening his wings. She watched as he took each feather between his fingers and massaged the follicle, rubbing downward over the quill and outward along the vane, straightening any places where the vane had split. Bella sat down on the bed behind him and took a feather of her own in her hands. It was as wide as her palm, blinding white with a pearlescent sheen. She touched the shorter feathers, soft as a duckling's down, where his wing joined with his back and he sighed with what sounded like pleasure.

"I can't reach those," he said. "We always have to have someone preen them for us. I think it's the High One's way of ensuring we'll have social interactions amongst ourselves and not spend all of our time watching our humans."

"Did you have a lot of friends?" she asked.

He smiled and nodded as if he sensed her next question coming.

"Lovers?" She tried to sound nonchalant.

His smile widened into a grin. "Our time moves much slower than yours. It can be very boring while our humans are sleeping."

"Maybe you could spend the time making sure your human isn't having a nightmare?" Bella said primly.

"We do, actually, or at least try to steer the dreams in a more pleasant direction. When a human is asleep, that's when they're most likely to hear us. We can appear as characters in our human's dreams. Do you remember that dream you had where you were ice skating and it turned into a waltz on the ice with a man whose face you couldn't see?"

"That was you?"

He smiled.

There was a pounding at the door and his smile disappeared. "Hide under the bed," he whispered. He pulled on his clothes quickly.

Bella got down on the floor and slid beneath the bed, lying amidst the bits of trash and dust bunnies which had accumulated under there. The door barged open and Bella saw a pair of women's legs. A female voice snapped in rapid Spanish. Edward's voice sounded pleading when he responded. The woman said something and Edward sighed. He followed her from the room. As soon as the door closed, Bella slid out from under the bed and pulled on her shoes. She looked around the room to see if there was anything left, but the good thing about having few possessions is that there is less that one can forget. Her underwear were still drying. Bella stuck them in her coat pocket and went to the door, peeking out into the empty hallway. She followed it to a balcony overlooking the lobby. She could hear Edward, his voice still pleading in Spanish and the woman's sharp retorts. Bella peeked over the side and had to bite her hand to keep from laughing aloud when the woman drove Edward out the door, whacking him about the head and shoulders with a broom.

She waited until the woman had gone inside an office behind the front desk then quickly tiptoed down the stairs and out the front door, right into Edward's waiting arms.

"She hit me!" he said indignantly.

"I know. I saw. Did we sneak in without paying again?"

He looked guilty. "She wanted an outrageous sum for the room. I told her it wasn't worth it and she got a little ... testy."

Bella sighed. "Well, it's Wednesday. After I call Jasper, our money troubles should be over. You wouldn't happen to know what time zone we're in, would you?"

He smiled. "It's five hours later on the East Coast." He seemed proud that he'd gotten this information for her.

She glanced at her bare wrist, a habit she could not break even though she hadn't worn a watch since she'd been kidnapped by the Theta Project. Which made her think of their immediate problem. "Edward, we're out in the open." She didn't see anyone who looked like "them", but she didn't know how far they had disseminated her wanted poster. Every person who glanced their way suddenly took on a sinister aspect.

"I know," he said grimly. He took her hand in his own. "Let's try to find another motel, one that will have a phone in the room to allow us to call your brother."

The streets were dirty and crowded, and the drivers of the multitudinous cars and mopeds seemed to share the opinion that traffic laws were merely suggestions and that honking enthusiastically would clear traffic snarls. Edward grabbed Bella around the waist and lifted her out of the way to avoid her toes being crushed by a moped that drove up on the sidewalk to pass a stopped car.

Beside the sidewalk, between buildings, a man had set up a table, selling American movie DVDs, and a thought occurred to her: "Edward, what if someone recognizes you as that actor?"

"It's all right," he assured her. "I only look like this to you, much like only you can see the wings."

"What do you look like to them?"

He smirked. "Less pretty."

She walked close behind him, clutching his hand tightly, the other hand over the pocket which held their money. She hated crowds, and there were so many people packing this narrow strip of cement that it was like being a salmon trying to swim upstream. Someone bumped into her and Edward snarled at him in Spanish.

"Edward, look!" Bella said, interrupting what might have become an argument. She pointed at the familiar sign of a chain hotel. _God bless American economic neocolonialism_, she thought.

"Well spotted!" Edward praised, as if Bella had done something extraordinary and they wouldn't have noticed it while walking right by it anyway. Bella pinkened under his fond, proud gaze.

He steered them through the crowd and they stopped at the intersection. There were no helpful WALK/DON'T WALK signs. People strolled out, seemingly at random, strutting boldly into the traffic as if they weren't in mortal peril from the cars that zipped around in Darwinian competition for every bit of space.

"No way," Edward said, shaking his head. "Come on," he drew her back, down an alley, far from the maddening crowd, ducking behind a pile of trash that had apparently been ignored by the sanitation crews. Edward scooped Bella up into his arms and jumped, his huge wings catching the air and lifting them upward, above the alley, above the deadly street, and safely to the other side, landing in another alley, where they wouldn't be seen suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

They headed for the alley's exit and a man stepped into their path, young and cold-eyed, holding a gun out toward them. He made a demand in Spanish that Bella did not need translated for her to understand. She reached into her pocket to pull out their money. "No," Edward said softly. "Bella, get behind me."

She did, and he spread his wings to their widest. She couldn't see what happened, but there was a scuffle and then a loud bang and a clatter as the gun fell to the pavement. Bella used her ability to snatch it up into her hand. Edward moved so fast that Bella could scarcely track his movements, but the end result was that the robber lay on the pavement, out cold. Edward bent down and pulled out the man's wallet before checking his other pockets. He found a knife and put it in the front pocket of his hoodie.

"Edward! You're robbing the robber?"

"Perhaps it will teach him a lesson," Edward said. "And now I have an ID that I can use. A bit more money ... Hey, look, a calling card!" Edward fished it out of the wallet and held it up for her to see. "The Lord does provide. Oh, and a pack of cigarettes!"

"Ugh! Why would you want those?"

"I've got to try it," he said.

Bella chuckled and shook her head, but her laughter died an abrupt death when she saw the stain soaking the side of his dark hoodie. She yanked it up and gasped. "You've been shot!" She smacked her forehead. "Why didn't I think to put up a shield?"

His tone was gentle, "Because you only recently learned it. It's not an instinctive reaction for you yet. I didn't think of it, either or I would have suggested it."

"But I let you get hurt! You're _bleeding_!" she cried.

"I'll be all right, really," he said. "I'm not mortal, Bella."

"I know, but it has to be painful."

"Yes," he said honestly. "But it will heal soon. Don't worry. Let's get you to the hotel where it's safe. Well, _safer_ anyway."

He used the robber's ID to check into the hotel, and the desk clerk either didn't notice the wet stain on Edward's side or he was used to seeing gunshot victims renting a room. They rode the elevator to the third floor, an experience which seemed to thrill Edward, who pushed every button and watched the lights change and the doors open and shut on each floor with rapt fascination. The key card also delighted him and he unlocked their door about five times before Bella insisted they go inside.

"Sit," she ordered him and went into the bathroom to wet a cloth and grab a towel. She pulled up his hoodie and winced at the hole in his side. "Stupid angel," she scolded. "You shouldn't have tried to fight him." She dabbed at the wound with the damp cloth. The bleeding had already stopped, thankfully.

"I couldn't let him take what little money we have," Edward said. "What if Jasper doesn't go to the bar tonight? Besides, look at all the cool stuff we got out of it." He pulled out the gun and turned it in his hands, examining it curiously.

Bella ducked. "Careful! Here, give it to me." He handed it over and Bella clicked on the safety. She ejected the clip and counted the rounds inside. Only five. If he wanted to keep it, they'd have to buy more ammo. She snapped the clip back into place and returned it to Edward.

"Take off your hoodie," she ordered. She took it into the bathroom and ran some water in the tub, adding a little shampoo. She put the hoodie in it to soak. Thank God it was a dark color which wouldn't show the stain. Edward lounged in the doorway, watching her.

"We need more clothes," he said.

She sighed. "We need a lot of things."

"Are you hungry?"

As soon as he said it, she realized that she was. They hadn't gotten to eat much of their breakfast and it was well past lunch time.

"I'll go out and get us something," Edward offered.

"You can't, not without your sweater."

"I'll wear your coat." He picked it up and shrugged into it, and Bella had to bite the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from breaking out into laughter. It bunched up over the top of his wings and he had to struggle to close the zipper. His long arms extended far past the cuffs of the sleeves. He looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame wearing a child's clothing. "I saw a grocery store down the street. Is there anything you particularly want?"

She shook her head. "Whatever, I'm not picky, and you probably already know what I like, anyway. Just make sure it's something we don't have to heat up. Be careful, okay?"

"I will." He took the gun off the nightstand and put it into her hands. "Keep this with you."

She stared down at its black, lethal gleam. Her father, Charlie, had been a small-town sheriff. He'd made sure that both of his kids knew how to handle firearms safely and even took them for target practice occasionally. The idea of defending herself with a gun had always been a very abstract concept, but now it was a very real possibility.

Edward pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "Not while I'm around. That's my job. I'll be back soon. Keep the door locked and don't answer it if anyone knocks. I love you."

"Be safe," she whispered. She followed him to the door and locked it behind him, watching through the peep hole until he disappeared around the corner, going to the elevator banks instead of the stairs.

She was surprised at how lonely she felt, just minutes after he had gone. She'd always been a loner, even as a child, and had lived alone since she graduated high school and only occasionally had she felt lonely. A call to her brother was usually enough to assuage it. But now, the room seemed empty and cold without Edward to share it.

She turned on the television and mentally awarded the hotel with the title of Worst Cable Ever, because there were only three channels from which to choose. One channel had on a Spanish soap opera with impressively bad acting. The second featured what appeared to be some sort of infomercial for a food processor, and the third was showing a prison drama which uncomfortably brought to mind the facility from which she had escaped.

She wondered how the people who had befriended her were faring, Quil, Alice, and even prickly little Jane. Did Alice know that Bella was safe? A terrible thought occurred to her: what if they were forcing Alice to search for Bella? She wouldn't have thought that Jacob would resort to strong-arm tactics, but then again, she wouldn't have thought him capable of dumping her outside in the snow to shoot her, either.

Tears stung her eyes. If it wasn't for Edward, she'd be dead right now. And Edward wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the mysterious task she was supposed to do. What if that task was to rescue the others from the facility? She thought of the dead, hopeless eyes of the other residents and then she remembered what Alice had whispered in her ear when they'd met, "_It's going to work, but not the way you think."_ Damn psychics. Why'd they always have to be so cryptic?

But how could they possibly break into a well-guarded, high-security government facility, just the two of them? She was still pondering this impossibility when Edward opened the door. He carried two paper bags, which he dropped on the bed and quickly unzipped her coat, sighing in relief as his poor, crumpled wings popped free. A few loose feathers floated to the floor.

Bella peeked into the bags. One contained peanut butter and a loaf of bread. The other contained candy. Lots and lots of candy. Candy of all kinds from bubble gum to taffy. He must have bought one of every kind.

"I did!" he replied gleefully.

"That's the last time you go grocery shopping on your own," Bella said.

* * *

><p>"Edward?"<p>

He was lying across the end of the bed, eating a Twizzler and watching Spanish cartoons. He rolled over to face her.

"I think we should go back to the facility and help the others escape."

He nodded. "I heard you thinking about it today, but I don't know how we could do it. All those soldiers with guns ... I don't want to kill anyone, Bella, but if we go in there, I might not have any other choice. "

"I can shield us," Bella said. "And the others have talents which can help us."

"I can't fly everyone away," Edward pointed out. "The first part would be getting transportation."

Bella rubbed her temples. "The first part is getting some money. What time is it?"

"Three-thirty," he replied, checking the robber's watch.

"Oh, good. Jasper usually gets to the bar around eight on darts night." She took the calling card, which thankfully had instructions printed in English. She remembered the number for the bar because it was one of those numbers which spelled out the name: BENNYS P. She dialed it, her heart thumping.

"Benny's," a male voice said in greeting.

"May I speak to Jasper?" Bella asked.

"Bella? Is that you? Jesus Christ! It's, me, Riley!"

"Hey, Riley," she replied. she'd known Riley for years. Her father used to take Bella and Jasper to Benny's Pub for lunch every Saturday while they were growing up.

"You're all over the news. Where the fuck have you _been_?"

"I can't say, Riley. I'm sorry. Please, is Jasper there?"

"Yeah, he is. Hold on."

Bella heard the thump of the phone being laid on the bar and Riley's voice faintly calling for Jasper. There was a murmur of voices and then the phone scraped across the bar as it was picked up.

"Who is this?" Jasper demanded, his voice tight and hostile.

"Jasper, it's me. It's Bella."

"Oh my God," Jasper whispered. "I'm sorry. I've gotten these crank calls. Bella, holy shit, is it really _you_?"

"It's me, Jazzy." She used the name she used to call him when she was little, something only she would know.

She heard tears in Jasper's voice. "Oh, thank God. Thank God. Are you okay? Where are you? What happened?"

She gave him a brief description of Project Theta and what had happened. On the other side of the room, Edward had finished with his candy and was trying to light a cigarette. He put it between his lips and flicked the lighter. "I need your help."

"Anything! You want me to come get you?"

"No," she said quickly. "They're probably watching you, which is why I called the bar instead of the house or your cell phone. You can't do anything out-of-the-ordinary or they'll get suspicious."

Edward kept touching the end of the cigarette to the flame but nothing was happening. _You have to inhale_, Bella thought at him. He did, and the end of the cigarette burned bright orange under the flames. Edward coughed out a cloud of smoke, yanking the cigarette out of his mouth, and kept coughing until he was red in the face.

"Who's that with you?" Jasper asked.

"That's Edward," Bella said as the angel in question, who hadn't learned his lesson the first time, tried inhaling on the cigarette again and went back to coughing like he was going to hack up a lung. "He ... uh ... helped me to escape."

"Is he _okay_?"

"Yeah, he's fine," Bella said as Edward bolted for the bathroom, a hand cupped over his mouth. _Shouldn't have eaten all that candy_, she thought. "He's a wonderful man, Jasper. He's keeping me safe. But we don't have much money. I was hoping you could wire me some."

"Certainly."

"But don't do it yourself, in case they're watching you. Have someone you trust do it."

"Charlotte," Jasper said immediately, naming his secretary. "She doesn't ask questions. Where should I send it?"

Bella took Edward's new wallet from the night stand and withdrew the robber's license. She read off the name and the city. "If there isn't a Western Union office here, pick the closest town. I'll call you tomorrow at this time to make sure there haven't been any problems."

"Bella, I think you should know something," Jasper said. "They're saying you're a terrorist. The news has been showing pictures of you in a headscarf meeting with Mohammed Atta."

Bella closed her eyes.

"They're offering huge rewards for your capture. You're on the FBI's Most Wanted List."

"They had to have some excuse to get law enforcement looking for me, too," Bella said. Edward came out of the bathroom, looking pale and waxy. He dropped on the bed with a soft moan. "Listen, Jasper, I have to go, but I'll call you tomorrow night, okay? Be at Benny's around eight."

"All right, sis. I love you. Please be careful."

"I will. I love you too, Jasper." Bella hung up the phone and laid down next to Edward. "Feeling better?"

"I had another new experience," he said dully. "This one, I hope never to repeat."

"Did you learn your lesson?" Bella asked sweetly.

"Which one? About eating a bag of candy for supper, or smoking, or combining the two? You aren't terribly sympathetic, you know."

"Sorry," Bella grinned. "You did it to yourself, you know. I tried to warn you. Come on." She scooted up the bed and pulled the covers back. Edward dragged himself to the head of the bed and crawled beneath them, jeans and all. Bella laid down beside him and turned off the light, snuggling up against him and stroking his hair soothingly. She'd thought to hold Edward while he took a recuperative nap, but even as early as it was, she fell asleep too.

And they both slept soundly, until the flash-bang grenade broke the window.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: The voting turned out to be so close that I've decided to continue on as I am, writing both stories, alternating postings every other day.

* * *

><p>Chapter Five<p>

..

Flash-bang grenades are intended to incapacitate with their loud explosion and brilliant flash of light, and that's what happened to Bella when the one thrown through their window exploded. She was blinded by the light, deafened by the blast. "Edward!" she screamed.

Edward rolled from the bed to land in a crouch, his wings spread wide to shield Bella behind him. The door crashed open and a squad of men (_Police? Soldiers?) _pushed into the room, guns at the ready. They did not see Edward. They saw only the screaming woman on the bed and that was the_ last_ thing they saw.

Something, some_one _unseen took them out one by one, with blows designed to render them unconscious, but not to kill. Whatever it was, it moved so fast that they didn't have time to fire their weapons, and so the people outside assumed that the mission was going according to plan.

"Edward!" Bella shouted again, her hands spread out as she searched for him, her blinded eyes wide.

She felt him touch her and she calmed a little. He picked her up and she could feel the vibrations from his chest that meant he was speaking, but she couldn't hear anything over the piercing ringing in her ears. She could feel him running. Her vision began to return and she saw that they were in the hotel hallway. He pushed open the door to the stairwell with his shoulder and she saw men in black helmets charging up the stairs from the floor below. Edward spun and ran in the opposite direction, and kicked open a door that read PERSONAL SOLAMENTE. It was a laundry room, silent and dark at this time of night. Edward dragged a table from the wall and jumped on top of it. He reached up to push open a vent in the air duct. Bella watched this, uncomprehending. He lifted her up and pointed to the opening and then to her. He pointed upward again. "_Roof"_ he mouthed. "_Meet. Me. On. The. Roof_."

"You want me to crawl through the ducts to get to the roof?"

He nodded and lifted her.

"Edward, wait. How will I know where to go?"

Edward heard the crashes of doors being kicked in down the hall as the floor was searched. "Go!" he mouthed. He pushed her up and Bella wiggled her way inside. It was barely large enough to fit her. He fit the vent cover back in place behind her. She looked back through the slits at Edward and saw something remarkable. His body shrank, his features morphed, his hair grew long, and then Bella was staring back at herself. "Go!"

He jumped off the table and ran out the door. If her ears weren't ringing so loudly, she might have heard the shouts of _"Allí ella es_!" as Edward drew them away from where the real Bella was hiding.

She looked down both directions of the duct. Both ways looked equally unpromising as a way to get to the roof. It was very dark, the only light coming from the vent opening and it was _filthy_. Air ducts in movies were always nice, shiny metal, comfortably large and well-lit. Bella crawled forward, squirming through the dust that was as thick as a layer of felt. Forward into the darkness, moving carefully and slowly, trying not to bang her heels or knees against the sides and make noise. She patted the floor of the vent ahead of herself to make sure there weren't any nasty surprises like a sudden drop-off. A piece of jagged metal cut her finger and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. She was still deaf from the grenade and wouldn't be able hear even if she was right above the soldiers, or whoever they were, but they might be able to hear her.

How had "they" found Bella and Edward? It had to be from the call to Jasper, she decided. Had the phone at Benny's been bugged or had someone sold them out? Charlotte? She couldn't believe that. Charlotte was an older lady who loved Jasper fiercely, like he was her own son. She'd never break his confidence. Riley? That was a possibility, she supposed. She may have known him since she was a kid, but it wasn't like they were close or anything. Not close enough for him to pass up a million dollar reward for turning in someone who the news was saying was a traitor and a terrorist.

She continued to drag her body forward, feeling around in the darkness, trying to avoid scraping herself on the sharp seams. Where was Edward? Had his apparent plan to lead them away from her by his transformation into her twin worked? Could he have been captured? Bella had seen him in action in the alley and knew he moved faster than the eye could see, but how many troops did "they" have? How many before he would be overwhelmed? He was immortal, but that didn't mean he couldn't be hurt. _ Oh, Edward, if you can hear me, I'm so worried about you_.

She felt a breeze against her skin. She patted around and squirmed forward until she found it, a larger vertical shaft. But how was she supposed to climb it? One slip and she could plummet-

She could have smacked herself. _Use your talents, dimwit._ She cautiously wriggled around until she had a foot braced on the left and right sides of the horizontal duct and stood up carefully in the vertical shaft. She calmed herself the best she could and concentrated. Slowly, she began to rise. She could see light, faintly, at the top. _Focus on the goal. Come on, Bella, you can do this._

Near the top she began to falter and panic made her lose her concentration. She fell a few feet before she caught herself, gasping, shivering (her coat had been lost when they had to abandon the room). _Come on, Bella. You HAVE to do this. There's no other choice._ She pushed herself up fast, almost too fast, arriving at the top where the vent curved horizontally. She used her ability to push at the vent cover and lost her concentration on levitation again, but thankfully, she was able to grab the edge of the vent before she fell however-many floors this duct went down. She pulled hard, trying to haul her body up to the edge, her feet slipping uselessly against the sides of the vent. Her upper-body strength had always been piss-poor. She was one of those kids in gym class who never managed to climb the rope, who couldn't do more than three or four push-ups to save her life.

Well, now it _was_ to save her life, or at least prevent a very nasty fall. She tried to lift herself up with her talent, but she was too panicked for it to work. She managed to haul her stomach over the curve, and from there, she was able to brace herself against the side. One more heave and she was dangling out of the vent. She pushed with her feet and fell out, onto the flat roof, breathing hard and shaky-limbed.

_Dear God, next time you might want to pick a more athletic girl for your mystery missions. Love, Bella._

She slowly forced herself to her feet and looked around. The surface of the roof had been covered in round gravel, which struck Bella as extremely odd and she pondered its purpose for a moment. The wide, flat expanse was broken up by pipes, vents and HVAC units. There was a door over on one side which probably led down to the stairwell. Bella tiptoed to the hotel's front edge and crouched down before peeking over. Below, she could see about half a dozen police cars with lights spinning and a couple of news crews filming. Bystanders were crowding around the sidelines, taking pictures. She crept away, hiding between two boxy HVAC units. _Edward, where are you_?

The door banged open and a policeman in riot gear charged at her. Bella's hands went up to her mouth to hold back the scream building inside her. But as he ran, he changed into Edward, and Bella nearly collapsed with relief. He grabbed her up into his arms, and didn't even pause, running straight for the edge of the roof, his wings spread. He leapt off the edge and for a spit second, they fell, until his wings caught the air and lifted them into the sky.

"Edward! Oh, thank God, Edward! Are you all right?" she gasped. She felt over his chest and shoulders for injury.

He looked down at her and smiled, his eyes tender. "I'm fine Bella. Is the cut on your finger deep?"

She was so grateful that she could hear him. For a while, she had wondered if her eardrums had burst. She held up her filthy hand and examined the wound she had forgotten. "No, it's already stopped bleeding."

"Good. I'll fly us as far as I can tonight and then we'll-"

"No!" Bella said. "We need to go get the money Jasper sent."

He shook his head. "It's too risky."

"You can go in invisibly," Bella argued. "Edward, we _need_ that money." She could tell he was wavering. "Please, Edward? Without it, how are we going to eat?"

"I'll steal food for you," Edward said. "The sin will be on my head, not yours."

"No, Edward, I won't let you do that. Please, land and let's at least discuss it, okay?"

He nodded and searched the ground for a good space. Bella tried to look with him but her fear of heights struck and she had to squeeze her eyes shut. A few minutes later, he chose an empty park and glided down behind a stand of trees, shaking out his wings before folding them up. Bella took a seat on a park bench and Edward chose a stump a few feet away, so that his wings could hang down naturally instead of being bent by the seat. "I think we should get as far away as possible," he started. "They know you're here, Bella. And they won't stop until they find you."

"We can't go too far," Bella said. "We still have to rescue the others."

He looked at her sadly. "I don't think that's going to be possible, Bella."

"It has to be," Bella said. "It's my task. I know it is. What could be more important than saving a facility full of God's special creations? He gave us these abilities for a reason, Edward. And I don't think that reason was so the U.S. government could study them like lab rats and take them out into the snow and shoot them when they're done."

He tossed up his hand in exasperation. "I don't know what your task is, Bella. It could be something as simple as saying a kind word to a person who's contemplating suicide, which causes them to change their mind and then they go on to do great things. Or it could be to save all of those people in the facility so that they can go on to do great things of their own. I'm not _supposed_ to know, lest I influence you in some fashion. But I know what _my_ task is, and that is to keep you safe. And every instinct I have is telling me to get you far away from here."

Bella walked over to him and put her arms around his neck. He laid his palms on her hips and drew her close and she sat down on his lap. "We've got to get that money, Edward. I don't want you to have to steal and I don't want to be chased out of hotels by broom-wielding managers. After we do that, we can talk about the rest, okay?"

He sighed. "All right, Bella. You win. We'll go back and get the money."

There was a payphone at the edge of the park which had a phone book dangling from a chain. Bella flipped through it until she found the address for the Western Union office and then flipped to the map in the front of the book. She showed Edward exactly where to go. "I still don't think this is a good idea," he said as he took her into his arms and flapped his wings hard to get them airborne.

They landed on the roof of a building nearby and they both peeked over the edge, watching the traffic and pedestrians silently. No cop cars. No men in dark suits. "I don't see anyone suspicious," Bella said.

He shook his head. "They don't want you to see until it's too late. Stay up here while I go investigate."

"No, I want to go to the store. Drop me off down there. " Bella pointed.

Edward groaned. "Bella, you're killing me."

"They won't be watching the _store_," Bella argued. "If they're here they'll be watching the Western Union office."

"You call for me if you see _anything_," he said. "You throw up a shield and run, understand?"

"I will, I promise."

They glided down into the alley beside the store. Before he let her go, Edward kissed her, his hands buried in her hair, a kiss that was long and sweet and slow, a kiss that made her heart pound and her toes curl. When he drew back, Bella's eyes were dazed. He smiled and then vanished from sight. She reached out a hand and felt his warm chest beneath her fingers. "Be careful," she whispered.

She left the alley and ducked into the store, repeating the greeting "_Hola_," that came from the shopkeeper. That was about the extent of Bella's Spanish vocabulary. The shopkeeper didn't even look askance at the young woman wearing filthy scrubs and no shoes. Bella found what she was looking for quickly and added a pair of large sunglasses she spied on a rack by the register. She put them on before exiting the store, waiting in the recessed entrance. She hopped on one foot while putting on the slippers she had purchased (the store didn't have any outdoor shoes) and then shrugged into the thin nylon jacket. It wouldn't be warm enough, but it was better than nothing. She was watching the Western Union office so intently that she didn't see the man who came up behind her until he spoke.

"Hello, Bella."

Thankfully she threw up a shield as soon as she heard it. She turned. Dr. Jacob Black stood beside her, a handgun to her head. Bella recoiled by instinct and he pulled the trigger. She hadn't realized she'd closed her eyes until she heard a scream after the loud crack of the gun. She opened them and saw Jacob clutching his face, blood pouring from behind his hand. She bet he was regretting teaching her how to shield hard enough to make bullets ricochet right about now.

Bella snatched the gun from him using her ability and ran toward the Western Union office. She saw them then, at least half a dozen men wearing strange helmets with goggles attached. And then she realized that they were infrared goggles. Edward might be invisible, but he cast off a heat signature and he was going to walk right out in front of them with no cover.

The men had made the same mistake she did, staring at their target intently instead of watching their backs. Bella lashed out with her power, sending them flying like dry leaves hit by a sudden breeze. They lay scattered on the pavement, unmoving. Bella felt something grab her and she was yanked upward.

He slowly became visible again and she could see that he was really upset. His jaw was clenched and he wouldn't look at her. "Did you get it?" she said urgently.

He showed her a bag slung over his shoulder, a large, flowery women's purse. "Yeah, I got it. I had to take this bag to carry it all. He sent us nine thousand dollars, which was smart thinking on his part because anything over ten thousand is reported. But they knew about it anyway."

"_Nine thousand dollars_?" Bella repeated. "Good lord. I was hoping for a couple of hundred."

"Your brother knows that it's unlikely you'll be able to contact him very often. That's what he said in his message, anyway."

"Do you have it?" she asked eagerly.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I dropped it as I ran. He said that he loves you and said you should try calling the one who used to give you the yucky chocolate."

"Esme," Bella said instantly. Esme was a close family friend, so close that Bella used to call her "Aunt Esme." She used to give Bella Godiva dark chocolates, and for a child used to Hershey's, it had seemed bitter and unpalatable. Bella had always been afraid to tell her she didn't like them because she didn't want to hurt Esme's feelings. "Do you think we could buy one of those disposable cell phones?"

He nodded. "That might work, especially if we threw it away right after using it and left the area."

Edward flew in silence for a few minutes. "Are you mad at me?" Bella ventured.

"Yes," he said bluntly. "I knew it was a bad idea but I did it anyway because you insisted. You weren't being careful like you'd promised. What if Jacob hadn't spoken before he pulled that trigger?"

She knew what would have happened. Her shield wouldn't have been in place. She'd be dead. Another near-death experience. She was racking up quite a tally of them. "I'm sorry," she said in a small voice.

"I know you are. I'm just going to be mad at you for a little while longer and then I'll be scared and I'll need to hold you, so I'm trying to get us somewhere we can get a room safely."

She said nothing. She turned in his arms and buried her face against his chest.

'I'm surprised Jacob came himself," Edward commented.

"With his ego?" Bella's voice was muffled. "Of course he'd want to personally be the one who bagged the prize."

"He must not have thought you would shield so quickly."

"I was never able to do it that fast in the testing."

She felt a shudder run through him and didn't need to be able to read his mind in order to know what he was thinking.

* * *

><p>Bella felt like she was frozen solid by the time Edward landed. She didn't know how he could bear the icy wind, shirtless as he was, but Edward said he wasn't bothered as much by the cold.<p>

They had lost the robbers ID in the hotel room raid, but luckily the woman at the hotel desk didn't ask for one. Edward paid cash, pulling it out of the flowered purse. The woman raised an eyebrow and smirked. Shirtless and holding a woman's purse. God only knew what she was imagining.

The room was small and dingy and the television didn't work. Bella asked Edward to go get them some food, "And _not_ candy", and waited until he had left the room before taking the bag of her purchases into the bathroom. She hopped into the shower and bathed quickly, wadding up the scrubs in the trash can. The store had carried a small selection of clothing and Bella dressed in her new t-shirt and sweats.

She started reciting song lyrics and poems in her head, carefully avoiding thinking about what she was doing. She pulled out a new pair of scissors and put the trashcan in the sink. Carefully, she cut into her hair, chopping it off at ear length and spent ages trying to get all of the bits of too-long hair which appeared every time she ran the comb through it.

She'd read the instructions on the pack of hair dye in the store, so she started the first stage while mentally singing Pink Floyd's "The Wall" soundtrack. The color she had chosen was bright red; she had thought that blond was too obvious. She had just finished the first stage of the process when Edward returned. She heard the crinkling of paper grocery sacks. "Bella?"

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'll be out in a minute."

"What are you doing? Something smells funny. And why is being in your head suddenly like an 80s radio station?"

"I'll be out in a minute," she repeated. "Go ahead and eat your dinner."

When she finally emerged from the bathroom, she found him devouring the last of a box of snack cakes. "Bella, what the _fuck_ did you do to your hair?" he gasped.

"I think that's the first time I've ever heard you swear," Bella commented.

He came over to her and passed his hand under the line of her new haircut as if the rest of the hair might be merely invisible. "Your _hair_," he whispered, mournfully.

"It will grow back," Bella promised.

He gave her a wounded look.

"I'm sorry, Edward, but if my picture is all over the TV, I have to change my appearance as much as possible." And she had known that if she let him in on what she was planning to do, he'd probably give her the puppy-dog eyes and beg her not to do it and she wouldn't be able to refuse him.

He sighed and held out the box. "Cake?"

"Please tell me you bought something that _isn't _ sweet?"

He'd actually done pretty well. He'd bought some more peanut butter and bread (though she thought the peanut butter down here tasted a little strange, sweeter than she was used to), some beef jerky and cheese. Bella sat down and made herself a little meal of it. While she ate, Edward read aloud, translated, the stories out of the newspaper he'd bought at the store.

"How is it that you know Spanish?" Bella asked, balling up the trash to toss into the can.

"I know all human tongues," he said. "Comes standard with the package." He tossed the finished newspaper aside and pulled the last items from the grocery sack. "Look!"

It was a can of shaving gel and a package of razors. Her brows drew together. "What's that for?"

"I"m going to go shave!" he announced.

"Edward, you don't have any facial hair," she pointed out.

"I know, but I wanted to have the experience. It's what men down here do every day, so I wanted to try it, at least once." He headed off to the bathroom and she heard the water run in the sink and Edward singing one of the songs she had been thinking so hard earlier, "Comfortably Numb" and his voice was exquisite.

The lyrics began to be interrupted by frequent exclamations of "_Ouch_!" Bella sighed. "Are you shaving downward?"

There was a pause. "I am now."

She went into the bathroom and got a piece of toilet paper. She began pulling off small bits to place over the numerous cuts he had inflicted on his poor face. When he had swiped away the last of the shaving cream, she wiped his face with a wet towel and applied the paper to the few spots that were still bleeding. "Had enough of that experience?"

He nodded. And before she could even blink, he picked her up and set her on the edge of the bathroom sink and proceeded to kiss the living daylights out of her. Bella clung to his naked shoulders, her breath coming short as excitement pooled in her belly. He picked her up, sliding his hands under her thighs, and carried her into the bedroom. Without breaking the kiss, he laid her down on the bed, supporting his weight above her on his hands and knees.

His lips left hers and traveled down her cheek to her throat and down to the neckline of her t-shirt. She felt his warm hands slide beneath and she stiffened. "Shh," he soothed. "Just playing a bit, Bella. I know you're not ready for me to make love to you. But that doesn't mean we can't have a bit of fun, right?"

His hands found her breasts and caressed them softly, gently through the fabric of her bra. Bella gasped. She'd never thought of her breasts as being particularly erogenous since she derived little pleasure from touching them herself, but Edward had turned them into a hot tangle of raw nerves. She heard herself moan and was surprised a sound like that had come from her throat, low and earthy.

One hand slid over her bare stomach to the waistband of her sweatpants. She stiffened again and he simply chuckled. "Through the clothes, I promise." And then he kissed her again and she forgot what it was that had made her nervous. She felt a light caress, so light she wasn't sure it had been real. Another. Bella groaned again. Edward pulled the cup of her bra downward with his teeth, watching her eyes for permission or denial. Her nipple peeked over the edge of the cup and he nuzzled it for a moment before latching on.

_Sweet baby Jesus_! Lightning shot from that nipple straight between her thighs. His fingers pressed against her, gently rubbing in circles, and her hips jumped in time of their own accord. He flicked her nipple with his tongue, blew on it lightly and then, without warning, sucked hard, pulling a sound from her that was a combination of a groan and a squeal.

She could feel a strange tension, squeezing tighter and tighter, within her. Edward groaned himself, muffled against her breast. His hand moved faster and then that tension burst. She cried out, arching against him, her entire body pulsing with pleasure.

It was a few moments before rational thought returned. She was, quite simply, speechless. The few times she had experimented, the results she'd gotten were _nothing_ like that. She'd always thought the romance novels were exaggerating, but it really did feel like she'd fallen off a cliff, exploded, splintered apart into a thousand pieces, rode a wave of rapture ... all of the cliches.

Edward kissed her lips, a small brush of softness. "That was _beautiful,"_ he said.

"What ... uh .. what about ..._you?_"

He smiled. "I've waited twenty years. I can wait a little while longer."

"What? You mean you haven't ...?" She stopped, floundering for words.

He shook his head. "Not since I fell in love with you. I knew how you'd feel about it if I had."

Bella started to feel really guilty. The guy had been celibate for over twenty years for her. It seemed the least she could do ... She started to unbutton his jeans. He caught her hand. "No."

"What?"

"No," he repeated.

"Why?"

"Because you don't _want_ to do it. You're offering it out of guilt and that's not the way I want you."

"But ..."

His voice was gentle, "No, Bella."

She let her hand fall away. "I ... uh ... Well, ..._ thank you_."

He laughed. "You're very welcome."

Bella hated how awkward she felt. "I'm going to ... um ... I'm going to go take a shower."

"Mind if I join you?" He sat up.

She closed her eyes. "Edward, I'm sorry, but I'd really rather be alone right now."

He sighed and flopped back on the bed.

Bella made her escape to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her with haste that made it bang sharply. She stripped and turned on the water, disappointed in both its temperature and pressure. The next hotel they stayed in, she swore to herself, would have a luxurious shower. She stepped beneath the drizzle and soaped herself, borrowing one of Edward's new razors to use on her stubbly legs and underarms.

He was seated on the side of the bed when she came out, and she was immediately alarmed by that wanting-to-talk pose. Maybe she should have stayed in the bathroom until she was sure he was asleep.

"Bella, stop. You're working yourself up for nothing," Edward said. He put out a hand and she took it, allowing herself to be drawn into his embrace. He wrapped his wings around her and Bella felt safer, more secure in that soft, white little world it created. "I'm not going to pressure you for more. Nothing has changed since yesterday."

"I feel ... this feels awkward."

"It doesn't need to be," he said. "Look at me, Bella. _Look_ at me." He took her chin in his hands and gently pushed it up. Her face was beet red. "Hey," he said when she finally met his eyes. "I was thrilled you let me do that, but if you never let me touch you again, I'll still be here and things will still be the same between us. Do you understand?"

Bella nodded, but she couldn't help but feel that something had changed. Something ... but she didn't know what it was.

They went to bed shortly thereafter, both of them exhausted from the day's exertions. Edward lay on his stomach, the most comfortable position for him to avoid crumpling his feathers, and Bella lay on her back. He kissed her cheek and snuggled up to her. Bella stared up at the flat, white ceiling, trying to sort through her emotions which seemed like a tangled up ball of string at the moment. It was a long time before she was able to fall asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

..

Bella bolted upright in the bed, her heart pounding. Edward, beside her, rolled out of bed and landed on his feet in a crouch, wings spread, the gun he'd snatched from the bedside table clutched in his hand. He surveyed the room, his head cocked, listening carefully, before slinking silently to check the bathroom, and then checked the door to make sure it was securely locked. He came back and slipped into bed beside Bella, who was still gasping. He could see the horrible nightmare replay in Bella's mind and did not need to ask what had scared her so badly.

"Just a dream," he told her. "A bad one, but only a dream."

She couldn't shake the vision of Alice screaming in agony, strapped to a table, while Jane stood by, hitting her with her talent again and again, and the wicked little smile on Jane's lips.

"You're not clairvoyant," Edward reminded Bella. "It's just your imagination, honey."

"But what if it's really happening? Or something like it? They could-"

"Stop, Bella. You're tormenting yourself for no reason. It's not going to help Alice for you to be upset and lose sleep. Come on, lie back down."

Bella shook her head. She was awake now and there was no chance of being able to curl up again in her angel's warmth and fall back to sleep.

Edward sighed got out of bed. He picked up the sweater he'd purchased from the hotel gift shop on the way back from the grocery store yesterday. It was light blue, one of the colors of Argentina's national football (soccer) team and it had dark blue bands running down the arm to dark blue elastic cuffs. He had cut slits in the back of it for his wings and now he struggled to get all of his limbs through the proper holes. Bella helped him, gently guiding the bend of each wing through the slit, trying to avoid crinkling any feathers in the process.

As soon as she was done, he drew her into his arms, laying his cheek on top of her head. "I don't like it when you're sad," he said.

"I"m sorry," she replied. "I just can't help it."

"Let's pack up and go get some breakfast. You're hungry; I can feel it."

She nodded. "But I could snack on the leftover jerky and cheese from last night."

'No," he shook his head and shot a mischievous smile in her direction, "you need pancakes. I can tell."

Bella smiled, ash he had intended. "I think it's you who needs the pancakes."

"Not at all," he said innocently. "I'm making the sacrifice for you."

"And here I thought angels couldn't lie."

"Small sin," he assured her. "You aren't being harmed by it."

"Is that how you know what's a sin? If someone is hurt by it?" Bella went into the bathroom to brush her hair and was startled by her own reflection, the bright red hair which curled below her ears.

Edward followed her and lounged in the doorway, his arms crossed. "That's the true sin: harming others. It's very simple, really. _Too _simple, I suppose, because every culture had to add on more rules."

"So, if I stole from a rich man, would that be a sin since he wouldn't be harmed by it?"

"He'd still be harmed, even if only a little bit. It doesn't matter whether the harm is great or small, or whether you can make worthy excuses for doing it."

"What about sex?" Bella asked, a flush appearing over her cheekbones.

"Depends on the motivation behind it, I suppose. Selfishly using another person would be a sin, but two people simply enjoying pleasure together would not."

"I feel like I used you last night," she confessed. She kept her eyes on the mirror as she squirted some toothpaste onto her toothbrush.

"You did _not_ use me. I wanted to give you pleasure. It was a gift of love, given freely, without conditions."

"But nothing was given in return, either." Bella's words were muffled around a mouthful of toothpaste foam.

"That's not true. You can't know how much joy I derived from it. Please, Bella. Don't spoil it by inventing reasons to make yourself feel bad. You did nothing wrong. If anything, I was the one who did something wrong, because I should have known how you would beat yourself up for it." He kissed the top of her head and met her eyes in the mirror. "You know that I wouldn't really lie to you, right? If I felt used, I would tell you."

He took his own toothbrush and squeezed the toothpaste. It exploded in his hand, squirting all over Edward, the mirror and the sink. "Oops!"

"I told you to squeeze from the bottom," Bella grinned.

It took him a while to clean up the mess, which he insisted would be rude to leave for the maids. Bella sponged his sweater while he cleaned, chuckling all the while.

He finally finished and came out of the bathroom to tug on his sweater. She helped him with the wings again. "What do you wear up in Heaven?" she asked.

"A smile," he responded. She laughed and he said, "Seriously, we don't wear clothes. I understand why you humans have to because it's so cold down here, but up there, clothes aren't needed."

"It's not cold everywhere," Bella reminded him. "When this is over, we could go to the tropics. Maybe hide out on an uncharted island where you could run around in the buff if you wanted."

He smiled wistfully. "That sounds nice." But Bella could tell that even he didn't believe it would be something that would ever really happen for them.

"Come on. Let's go get something to eat."

They gathered their few possessions. Everything fit comfortably within Edward's big flowered purse, which he insisted on carrying for her. He also insisted that Bella carry the gun she had taken from Jacob, a nine millimeter Glock, which fit down inside the pocket of the sweat pants. She could feel its lethal weight against her thigh, a constant reminder of the danger they were in.

She wondered if Jacob had survived the injury he'd gotten from being hit by the ricochet. He'd been bleeding pretty heavily. She half-remembered something she'd once seen on television about gunshot wounds: that if the victim was still mobile after the injury, their chances of recovering were good. She wondered if it was a sin to hope he'd died, and that he'd died painfully.

"If it is, I'm guilty of it too," Edward said. They went outside, using a side door, ducking between cars so Edward could lift off, unseen. He flew them to a small diner. Inside, Edward asked the hostess a few questions before she led them to a seat. "They have pancakes!" Edward announced, sliding into the booth beside Bella. She frowned at her when she only ordered tea and toast. "Bella, you should eat. We don't know how late our next meal will be."

"I'll share some of yours," she said. He'd ordered half the menu, including Argentine breakfast foods along with the American foods he'd liked. His favorite new discovery was the _dulce de leche_, a toffee spread that was eaten on small, light bread rolls. He moaned in an almost sexual manner when he tasted it for the first time, making heads swivel in his direction.

"That's it," he declared. "We're staying in Argentina for the rest of your life. I cannot live without this stuff."

"I'm sure there's a way to get it imported, no matter what country we end up in.," Bella said.

He took another bite and moaned again. People stared.

"Edward," Bella hissed. "Stop that! People will think we're doing something naughty under the table."

His eyes twinkled. "Want to?" He put a hand on her thigh and she blushed a brilliant red, her heartbeat speeding up. She tried to nonchalantly remove his hand and he put it back immediately, grinning.

"We don't need anyone calling the cops on us for public indecency."

He sighed. "You're right. What a shame." His fingers walked up her leg.

"_Bad_ angel!" she whispered.

"Yup," he cheerfully admitted.

She was so flustered that she dropped the wrapping of a sugar packet in her tea. Watching it float on the surface, an idea struck her. "A boat! We should rent a boat and take it to the island. When we rescue everyone, we could use it to help them escape."

"Bella, I'm really nervous about this whole thing."

"I know." Bella laid her hand over Edward's. "But if this is what God wants me to do, He'll make sure it's successful, won't He?"

"We can't know for sure that this is your task." He held up a hand. "Yes, I know, all of those special people must have special tasks of their own, but we can't be for certain. And we'll be risking your life in the process."

"Why does that matter so much to you?" Bella asked. "If something happens to me, we both just go to Heaven, right?

He shook his head. "That's not what I want for you. I want you to have a long, happy life and experience everything it has to offer. I want you to have lots of babies and drive a minivan and get old and wrinkly."

She laughed. "And how am I supposed to get those babies?"

"You could fall in love with someone else," he said softly. "A human man. A man that can give you everything I cannot."

She was bewildered. "What would happen to you?"

"If you didn't want me around any more, I would simply disappear and watch you silently. I want you to be happy, Bella, even if that means you're with someone other than me."

She shook her head slowly, thinking what a torment it would be to watch the person you loved with someone else, to constantly hear their thoughts of the other person, to hear their sighs of pleasure when other hands caressed them.

"No," he said. "You cannot let feeling sorry for me hold you back if there's someone else that you want."

She shook her head again. The idea of any other hands touching her was repulsive anyway.

They finished their leisurely breakfast and then strolled down to a store to buy a disposable cell phone. The store sold ammunition, too, and Bella was shocked at the prices. Despite the large wad of cash in what she was starting to think of as "Edward's purse", Bella knew they had to be careful with their money because who knew how long it would be before they could get more? There was no help for it, though: they had to buy it.

Edward wanted to rent another hotel room but Bella shook her head. "I think we should go back to Ushuaia. We can rent a boat there once we have our plan worked out."

Edward grimaced. "They found us there, remember?"

"Yes, but they won't expect us to go _back_ to that city now, for precisely that reason."

Edward was able to make the whole flight without stopping this time. He landed on the roof of an apartment block and told Bella to stay put.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to try to rent us an apartment. They could be watching the hotels, but I doubt if they're monitoring apartment rentals."

"Smart thinking," she called to him and he beamed at her praise.

He was back in less than half an hour, a key in his hand and a sheaf of papers tucked into his purse. He grinned at her, clearly proud of himself. "It's furnished," he said. "It's not much, but it will suit our needs for a while."

They stuck to poor neighborhoods intentionally. Fewer questions were asked, IDs rarely checked, transactions were done in cash, and apartments there allowed for a month-to-month rental without a lease. Edward glided them to the ground and then led Bella through the door into the apartment building. There was no lobby; a set of stairs stood directly in front of the door with a narrow hallway to the right. It smelled like mold and stale cigarette smoke. She followed Edward up the stairs to the third floor. She could hear thumping music and crying babies. Edward unlocked the door to 23C and led her inside.

It wasn't as bad as she had expected from the hallway. It had been freshly painted and the carpet was relatively new. A plastic-covered sofa stared at a blank, white wall. A tiny kitchen adjoined on the left side of the room with a small table and two chairs against the wall. There were two doors. One led to the bathroom, which was done in terrible 1950s aqua green and pink tile and none of the fixtures seemed to have been updated since that time. The other door led to a bedroom, which had only a small double bed with a thin vinyl mattress, like the beds in jails.

Edward was looking at her hopefully and she smiled. "It's fine, Edward."

"I checked the shower," he offered. "The water is nice and hot."

She hugged him. "Really, it's fine."

"When all of this is over, I'll get you a beautiful house, I promise," he said.

She didn't think it would ever be over. "They" had chased her from the time she was a teenager. Constantly running, moving, trying to stay ahead of them had become normality. Even if they managed to rescue Alice and the others, she entertained no illusions that it would be the end of it.

* * *

><p>Dr. Jacob Black was supposed to kill Bella Swan and now he was at the point where he was going to enjoy it. He stared at his face in the mirror with quiet horror, at the skin shredded by shrapnel, stitched together in Frankensteinesque patterns, and at the hole where his eye should be. He had to wear a goddamn eyepatch to keep from freaking out the residents.<p>

Of all the times for that bitch to learn how to shield properly. He had thought at the close range, there would be no way of stopping the bullet. Instead, she had sent it back into his face in pieces and Jacob hated her for it. He would bear those scars for the rest of his life. He might, eventually, have plastic surgery to remove the worst of it, but he couldn't replace the eye that was gone.

He had spent the last few days recuperating in his quarters at the facility, unable to lead the hunt. And, of course, those dumb-fuck troops he'd been assigned couldn't find their ass with both hands and a flashlight unless he was there, so no progress had been made. The trail had gone cold. They hadn't even recorded the serial numbers of the money that the Invisible Man had stolen.

Who the fuck _was_ that guy and how had Bella found him? Jacob had difficulty believing the team members who had burst into the hotel room when they said they'd all been rendered unconscious by an invisible force. He'd thought it had to be Bella's talents. She had lashed out blindly and made some lucky hits, he thought. But he had actually seen the Invisible Man himself with infrared goggles, as he'd entered the Western Union office, throwing off a strangely lumpy heat signature. Someone had had the presence of mind to take photographs, which Jacob had studied intently, but he still couldn't figure out what made the Invisible Man's shoulders so weirdly humped.

Whoever he was, Jacob wanted him for the Theta Project. He'd once had a test subject who could make a single person looking at him _think_ he had disappeared, but that was subtlety manipulating the mind of the viewer, not true invisibility. The Invisible Man could only be seen by his heat signature and Jacob desperately wanted to know how he did that. If they learned how he managed it, they could possibly find a way to replicate it. The military applications alone would make Jacob famous, and more importantly, ensure that the Theta Project had a long and well-funded future.

Now, he was stuck waiting until Bella made a mistake and they could locate her again. He was relatively certain that she would call her brother soon. He gave it an 85% probability in his report to The Big Guy. He gave civilian reporting only about a 15% chance, even with the monstrous award they were offering. She had bought scissors and hair dye, though the store wasn't computerized and didn't keep track of things like brand or color. Showing the public multiple versions of what Bella could now look like wouldn't help. It would just increase the number of false hits and their staff was already stretched to the max chasing down all of those leads.

He needed more men. He'd told the Big Guy that in their last e-mail communication. He had never actually to or seen or spoken personally with the Big Guy, but Aro had, and whatever had occurred the last time Aro went to see him had left him shaken in a way that left a big impression on Jacob. They had to find Bella Swan and _fast. _The Big Guy had responded that if Jacob couldn't use the resources he already had wisely and complete the mission, he would find someone who could, which meant Jacob would end up with his brains splattered all over the snow behind the facility.

With that probability she'd call Jasper within the next few days, all they had to do was wait. Once the call came though, they'd be able to triangulate her position based on how many cell towers her signal bounced off of. And if she didn't, they would "arrest" her brother and make sure that it was widely broadcast on Argentine news. He estimated a 40% chance she would turn herself in to try to get him released and a 50% chance she would try to rescue him. He really hoped it was the latter because he had a nice trap laid for her and it would be so convenient to fight this out on home ground, so to speak.

People with emotional ties were so easy to manipulate. Jacob's father had taught him that. He had been the coldest, most emotionless man Jacob had ever met and working with various underground branches of the government, one tended to encounter a lot of hard-asses.

He'd been an assassin, one of the best in the world, used by the government to eliminate "problems" around the world. Mr. Black (and Jacob had never discovered if that was actually their real family name as he had discovered about a half a dozen birth certificates for his father and himself in his fathers papers after he died of cancer, each with different names and places of birth) could have killed bin Laden within 24 hours of receiving the order, had the government not found him to be more convenient alive.

His father was a cruel man, heavy with the fists and taunts throughout Jacob's childhood, but Jacob was now grateful for all that his father had taught him. He'd been toughening Jacob, as steel is tempered by fire. Emotions were people's most reliable weakness, and in order to be able to manipulate them properly, one had to be free from emotion themselves. His father's true commitment to living without that weakness had been illustrated in his response when Jacob asked what had happened to his mother: "I found myself starting to care about her. So I killed her."

Jacob himself had never managed that level of coldness. He had actually liked Bella Swan, and had even briefly considered the feasibility of carrying on an affair with a patient before deciding it was too risky. He thought she might have been willing at one time when he was still piling on the charm with the smiles and Oreos, but the Kitten Incident had ended any chances of that and the order to terminate her had come shortly thereafter. He could hear his father's mocking laughter in the back of his mind. _See, Jacob? That's why you don't get attached._

Well, it would be over soon. Sooner or later, she would make a mistake and he would be there, waiting. Maybe he'd put out both of her eyes before he killed her, just so , that she would die knowing how it felt, the _last_ thing she would ever feel. He liked that idea. And hopefully, he would have the Invisible Man to be the new jewel of the Project.

* * *

><p>Edward charged and activated the phone and they flew to a neighboring town to use it. Bella didn't know how well cell phone technology mirrored what they could do on television, but she didn't want to take any chances. She and Edward sat on a rooftop to make the call. Unless "they" came by helicopter, Edward would be able to see them coming and fly them away to safety.<p>

She dialed Jasper's cell phone number and waited while it rang, once, twice. His voice sounded cautious when he answered, likely from the unknown number popping up on his Caller ID.

"Jasper, it's me," she said.

"Bella? What are you doing calling this number? You know they have to be monitoring it."

"I know. I just had to call you, Jazzy. I don't know when I'll be able to talk to you again." Tears threatened, making Bella's voice crack as she said the last words. "I love you. I want you to know that."

"I do know it, Bells. And I love you, too. Did you get the money? The news said you were seen 'robbing' a Western Union and that you held up a little old lady and stole her purse. Some of the news shows are speculating about what kind of terrorist supplies you'll buy with the quarter-million you took."

Bella was indignant. "We only took the money you sent, and Edward took the purse of a middle-aged woman from under her desk, dumping out all of her possessions and leaving a hundred dollars to cover it."

Jasper snorted. "Gotta love the media. I'm glad you got the money. I've been really worried about you."

"Don't be," Bella said. "Edward takes really good care of me." At that, Edward took her hand and squeezed it, then brought it to his lips for a kiss.

"Listen Bella, something bad is going to happen to me." Jasper's voice was as calm in announcing this as if it were the time and temperature.

"What?" Jasper was not a brilliant pre-cog like Alice, but he sometimes knew things in advance, and he'd never been wrong yet.

"I know it, Bella. I can feel it. You know that I don't ever get details about this kind of shit, but I'm pretty sure that it's 'them'."

"Jasper, what-"

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "My will is updated and you get everything, though I'd imagine it's going to be next to impossible for you to actually claim it any time soon, so I've made arrangements for the house to be sold and my stuff to be put into storage until you're ready and able to sort out what you want to keep. My only request is that if you ever can, please take care of Charlotte, because this is going to be damned hard on her."

"Jasper, are you _sure_ ..."

"Sure I'm going to die? No. But _something_ is going to happen and it's not good, whatever it is. I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row in case it's the worst case scenario. Hand the phone to Edward, will you?"

She did, feeling numb with shock., Her stomach was a cold, hard knot inside her. She barely heard Edward's side of the conversation, which mainly consisted of "_I will_s" and "_I swear_s". He handed the phone back to Bella, whose throat was too clogged with unshed tears to speak. "I'm sorry, Bella," Jasper said. "I'd hoped to walk you down the aisle some day since our father is gone. I'd hoped- well, I suppose it doesn't matter now. The important thing is that you know I love you. And Bella, I want you to promise something for me."

"Anything," Bella choked.

"Promise me you won't sacrifice yourself to them if they make an offer. If it comes down to it, I don't mind dying, as long as I know that you'll be safe. Don't make my death be in vain, please. Promise me."

"I promise," she whispered.

"No matter what you see," he insisted.

She closed her eyes, knowing what he meant. "No matter what I see."

"Thank you. I love you, Belly-Bean."

"I love you, too, Jazzy."

The line went dead.

Edward gently pulled the phone from her hand and tossed it over the side of the building, after making sure that no one was below to be hit by the debris. He returned to Bella and sat down facing her, wrapping his wings around her, holding her in that soft, white world where everything was safe.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

..

Bella was washing dishes when Edward came through the front door. "Luuucy, I'm hooome," he called.

She chuckled. Edward had discovered a fondness for _I Love Lucy_ since buying a DVD of the show from a street vendor. Every evening, on his way home from the docks, he would stop and buy a movie or episodes of television shows for them to watch, snuggled on the sofa, after dinner. He almost always selected comedies; the one time they'd watched a tragic drama, he'd been sad for days, even though he knew it was fictional.

They had been in this apartment for over a month now and had settled into a comfortable routine. Every morning, Edward left for his new job on the docks, a job he'd gotten because Bella was still determined to rescue the others in the facility, and they needed a reliable boat captain to provide transportation. Edward had decided the only way to know for sure was to work with them. He liked working. Even the blisters he'd had on his hands the first day didn't dampen his enthusiasm. His co-workers were astonished by his indefatigable strength and cheerful willingness to pitch in wherever needed.

She dropped the plate she'd been washing back into the water and dried her hands before going into the living room to give him a kiss. He was still wearing his coat, which was odd, because he usually took it off as soon as he got through the door, hating how it constricted his wings. She heard something and tilted her head. There it was again.

"Edward, why is your coat whining?"

"Well, that's something I wanted to talk to you about." He unzipped it and into his hand plopped a puppy, an ugly, bedraggled little thing with matted black fur. It wagged its tail hopefully.

"Where did you get a puppy?" Bella asked. "_Why_ did you get a puppy?"

"I found him," Edward explained. "He was under a car in front of the apartment building."

"You should put him back," Bella said. "What if he just wandered away from his home?"

Edward shook his head. "I can't put him back. The car is gone now."

"I don't think we're allowed to have a dog in the apartmen," Bella pointed out.

"Not according to our rental agreement, but I gave the manager a thousand dollars for a deposit and he said we could."

"A _thousand dollars_?" Bella sat down on the sofa. "Jesus Christ, Edward!"

"We'll get it back when we move," Edward said.

"The hell we will," Bella said. "I'll bet you didn't even ask for a receipt."

"Well, no," Edward admitted. "But we have no reason to believe the manager is a dishonest person."

Bella buried her face in her hands. She had to be patient, she reminded herself. Edward simply didn't understand. It was like the time he'd given half his paycheck to a homeless man they passed on the street. "Edward, we can't take care of a puppy. We could have to leave suddenly at any time and he would be abandoned."

Edward nodded. "I discussed that with him."

"The manager?"

"No, the dog."

Bella blinked. "You talked _to the dog_ about us having to leave suddenly?"

"Yes, and he says he understands. He's lonely and wants a family for as long as he can have one. I told him that you would have to approve when I found him."

"The dog _talks_?"

"Well, to me anyway."

"Does he speak Spanish?"

"No, Bella," Edward said, as if it were a bizarre question. "He speaks _dog."_

"Oh."

"He promises not to pee on the rug if we'll make him a box with newspaper in it, and he'll warn us of any intruders."

"Does he have a name?"

Edward shook his head. "He says the human who abandoned him just called him 'the runt'."

Bella sighed. "I suppose we have ourselves a dog, then."

Edward was delighted. He kissed her and said, "Thank you. You won't regret this."

She was already regretting it, picturing chewed-up shoes and taking the puppy outside in the cold.

Edward shook his head. "You won't have to do that. He'll use the box during the day, and I'll take him out at night. We'll get him some toys to chew. I'll go get the supplies right now!" Edward practically skipped out the door in excitement.

The puppy looked at Bella expectantly. "I'm sorry. I'm not an angel, and I don't speak Dogeese," Bella said. She picked up the puppy, which was alarmingly light, nothing but fur and bones. She carried him into the kitchen and put him on the floor to scamper around on the linoleum until she finished the dishes, using her power to dry the plates with a hand towel.

She ran a new sink full of water and plunked him into it, washing him with dish soap; she doubted if Edward would think of flea-and-tick shampoo. After the puppy was clean, she ran a comb through his hair as gently as she could, cutting out some of the worst of the snarls, and wrapped him in a towel. He fell asleep in her arms and Bella smiled down at him. He was a cute little thing now that he was clean. Maybe having a puppy wouldn't be so bad. She warned herself not to get attached, even as she acknowledged that it was impossible to avoid it.

Edward returned with half of the pet store. Not only had he remembered the shampoo, he'd bought three brands. She groaned at the mound of stuff. She knew better than to allow him to shop unaccompanied.

"I know, I went a little overboard," he confessed. "But I wanted him to have everything he needed. We might be the only family he ever has and who knows how long we'll be here? I want for him to have some good memories of his puppy-hood."

Bella sighed. "I know, Edward, but we have to be careful with our money." He only made the equivalent of about $800 per month, working at the docks, and they had the steep rent and utilities to pay, and now they needed to take a puppy to the vet for all his shots and to get him fixed. Edward winced when this last thought went through her head.

Edward fed and played with the puppy while Bella made dinner. He was interested in the process of cooking, but was easily distracted, so when Edward was in the kitchen, things got burned or boiled over. Bella generally shooed him away to do something else while she cooked, even though she'd always disliked the chore. She could only make very simple dishes like the spaghetti she had cooked tonight, but Edward claimed to find her cooking delicious. He certainly ate enough of it to make it believable and make her wonder if angels could get fat.

She turned off the last burner and carried the pot to the table. Edward put the puppy in his basket, where he promptly fell asleep, content with being warm and having a full belly for the first time in his short life.

Edward prayed aloud, thanking God for the food, something he had picked up from one of the movies they'd watched, and then dug into the heap he'd piled onto his plate. Bella nibbled. She hadn't had much of an appetite since Jasper had gone "missing" a week ago. It had been on the news, prominent architect with a terrorist sister suddenly gone, possibly a terrorist himself now. Bella had shook her head in bewilderment over that last part, as though terrorist sympathies were contagious or something. (She had also been indignant when the media speculated Jasper's buildings might be unsafe and should be checked for hidden, intentional faults which would cause collapse.) It had brought Bella back into the media spotlight, so she hadn't left the apartment in a week. Even with her short, red hair and big sunglasses, someone might recognize her.

Edward did the dishes after dinner and took the puppy outside for a short walk. Bella sat on the sofa, staring into space. She had a pile of English paperbacks by her chair that Edward had found for her at a secondhand store, including some of the classics she loved, but she didn't feel like reading. She looked at the silent television and briefly considered turning it on, just so she'd have an excuse to sit there, staring. Not that it would fool Edward. He knew every thought that went through her head, though he had learned to refrain from his unnerving habit of replying to them as if she had spoken.

But if he'd heard the thoughts she'd had today, he'd given no indication. He was probably waiting for her to make the first move.

He'd been as good as his word. After the time he'd touched her over her clothing, he hadn't pressured her to do anything sexual, though they'd had a few long make-out sessions on the sofa that she couldn't remember which of them had initiated. He really did seem to be content simply with her company if that was all she was willing to offer.

It made her feel safe in a way she'd never felt with another male. Relationships had always been very difficult for Bella. She couldn't share her secrets with anyone for fear of their reaction and so she was incapable of true emotional intimacy, and for her, that ruled out physical intimacy as well. Edward knew everything there was to know about her and still loved her. He'd made it clear he wanted a sexual relationship but was willing to wait until she felt ready to take that step, to wait forever if he had to.

Was he simply _better_ than a human male with his preternatural patience and truly unconditional love for her? Did it come from being an angel or was it from being_ Edward_? Whenever she tried to examine and define her feelings for him, she couldn't help but wonder if those feelings were for _what_ he was versus _ who_ he was. But what if they were one and the same?

If Edward were human, would he be different? Certainly, he wouldn't have the enthusiasm for even the most mundane experiences of living that she found so endearing, and he wouldn't have his encyclopedic knowledge of her life, her hopes and her fears and the quirks of her personality. Would he be as fun-loving, suddenly inviting her to go in and jump on the bed, or build a pillow fort from the sofa cushions and lob rolled-up socks at one another? Surely, he wouldn't be as trusting. Humans learned cynicism at an early age or they became victims.

She thought suddenly of that homeless man to whom Edward had given so much money. She had walked by the human-shaped lump beside the street without a second thought, but Edward had crouched down and spoken to him. The man had been intoxicated on top of being mentally ill, filthy and dangerous-looking, the type of person Bella would have crossed the street to avoid. But not Edward. He had spoken a few soft words and the man looked up at him in wonderment. "_Ángel,_" the man had whispered, rising to kneel in front of Edward and then tentatively touched one of his wings. Edward had said something else to him and stuffed the cash in his pocket. The man had nodded vehemently and hastened down the street to do Edward's bidding. Bella had said nothing about the incident, ashamed as she was of her own callousness and repulsion.

She had wondered later, as she wondered now, if Edward's compassion would still be as strong if he'd been human, or would it have been slowly numbed from him to the point where his eyes slid over humanity's refuse without even acknowledging their existence? She had also wondered how the man had known what Edward was. Were the ancient philosophers right that madness granted a certain spiritual clarity?

The most important question of all of this was: would Edward love her if he wasn't her angel? Bella knew she wasn't easy to love. She was guarded and quiet. Her looks and personality weren't anything to write home about, either. She had a list of insecurities far longer than the list of her positive traits, that was for sure. Edward had said that he had always loved her as an angel loves their human, but falling in love with her had been something different, something special. She supposed it all boiled down to whether she believed him. She knew he wouldn't lie about such a thing, but he might not know any better.

And, were any of _her_ feelings created from the special bond? Of course she would be attracted to him. He had designed his appearance specifically to attract her, even changing the actor's eyes from blue to green because she thought green was prettier. Would her heart still pound when he gave her that sexy, hooded look if he wasn't so handsome?

What if she was only considering sleeping with him because he was _saf__e_? A man who would never leave her, never break her heart. It simply wasn't in Edward's nature to use someone, and he didn't have a shred of unkindness in him. To have sex with him just because she knew he couldn't hurt her was using him in the way she'd always feared being used.

She was so confused. She wished her mother was still alive, or her father. Both of them were pragmatic and sensible people who would have been able to sort out her feeling with just a couple of well-placed questions. But Renee had died of cancer nearly four years ago and her father, Charlie, had died of a heart attack (in reality, a broken heart) less than six months later. She wished she could call Jasper. He was just as befuddled when it came to love as she was, but it would be nice to have someone else's input.

Edward had to know what she was thinking, but he'd apparently decided to let her work it out for herself. But Bella didn't seem to be coming any closer to an answer. Her thoughts seemed to revolve on a well-worn track, repeating again and again without her getting any closer to coming to a conclusion.

Edward re-entered the apartment and put the puppy into his basket where he immediately settled back into sleep. He came over to the sofa and crouched down in front of Bella, his eyes soft, a sweet little smile playing around his lips. "You're right that I've left it for you to work out yourself. I had hoped you would come to an understanding of sorts when you examined all of your feelings, but you do seem to be a bit stuck. I'll simplify it for you: _I love you, and you love me._ It doesn't matter where it originated or if we'd feel the same way in different circumstances. We have only this life to contend with, so don't muddy the waters by trying to guess what your feelings would be if everything was different. What matters is that we love one another now, here, in this life, in this moment."

"Edward," she whispered, and he kissed her, long, slow and sweet before rising to his feet and holding out his hand to her. She looked at it for a moment and knew that if she took it, she was accepting more than just his assistance in rising to her feet. She felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, jumping and trusting that he would catch her before she fell.

Bella took a deep breath and jumped.

* * *

><p>He led her into the bedroom, which was lit only by the light coming through the ajar door to the living room and the whimsical nightlight, shaped like a star, that Edward had given her last week. (He was always bringing her little presents like that, things he encountered during his day which made him think of her.)<p>

She was a little nervous, but she supposed that was normal when trying something new, something that made up such an important part of life. Her heart pounded as he stepped closer to her, his hands lightly landing on her shoulders before caressing down her arms and lifting her hands up to kiss them. "We can stop at any time," he reminded her.

Bella nodded, her breath a little unsteady. She didn't know what she was supposed to do now. Strip, maybe? She took her hands from his and brought them to the top button of her blouse. He covered them with his own, stopping her. "I want to do that. Relax, Bella. You don't have to do anything but enjoy."

He led her over to the bed and plumped up the pillows, another thing he was constantly buying as if trying to make up for their uncomfortable little bed by making sure their heads were pampered. And there, he kissed her, simply kissing her for a long while, until Bella had relaxed, forgetting everything but his mouth on hers and the sensations it evoked. His lips left hers and slid down her throat, working their way to the little hollow between her collar bones, and then down to the small vee of bare skin above the buttons of her shirt. She didn't even notice that he unbuttoned it, slowly, kissing every bit of skin he uncovered as he went.

"Mmm. You smell so good," he said, and she wondered why because she wore no perfume, and they used the same simple bar soap.

He chuckled. "You're over-thinking again, Bella."

"Sorry. I can't help it."

"I know you can't. That's one of the things that makes you the person you are. The person I love." He pushed apart the sides of her shirt and started on the skin above the cups of her bra while unbuttoning her jeans and sliding them off her legs so smoothly that she didn't even notice they were gone until his hands were caressing her bare thighs. She shivered from the sensation and he smiled, kissing her bare stomach. A bit of embarrassment caused her to mentally cringe as she thought about her exposed body. He was used to seeing angels in all their perfection.

"Your body is perfect because it belongs to you," Edward whispered. "That makes it the most beautiful body I have ever seen. I've dreamt of this, you know?"

"Really," she gasped as his tongue dipped into her navel. "I, um, I didn't think angels ... had those kinds of dreams."

"I never dreamed until I came down here," he said. "So I suppose you are partially correct." He reached behind her and deftly unhooked her bra. She looked at him with an arched brow. "I've been practicing," he said.

"With whom?"

His cheekbones flushed. "With no one. I, um, I put your bra on a pillow. I saw in that one movie we watched how difficult it could be and I didn't want to fumble around when it finally came down to the real moment."

Bella laughed and squeezed him. Her adorable angel.

Her underwear followed the bra to the floor and he sucked in a breath. He'd seen her nude many times, of course, because he still insisted on sharing the shower, but never in this context. His eyes were hot as they met hers after traveling over her body and he kissed her with a passion that took her breath away.

He divested himself of his own clothes with an impatience he hadn't shown with hers, ripping his sweater as he pulled it over his head. It caught on his wing and he swore, yanking at it.

"Here," Bella said, reaching up to help him. He settled back into his patient demeanor as she tugged it free. He started up at her neck again, kissing every bit of skin he encountered on his way to her breasts. He latched onto a nipple suddenly and she arched under him with a gasp. He sucked rhythmically, gently squeezing the other nipple in time with his mouth. Bella writhed and wondered if a girl could orgasm just from having her nipples sucked. It certainly seemed possible, and then he added in light caresses of her thighs before moving inward. When he touched her, Bella couldn't hold back the moaning cry that tore from her throat.

He left her breasts and kissed down over her stomach to where his hands had been moments before. He glanced up at her and she trembled. "I've wanted to taste you for so long," he whispered.

_Lightning_. Jesus Christ, his tongue was made of lightning. Bella stuffed her fist against her mouth to hold back her cries. If she didn't, the neighbors would probably call the cops, certain that someone screaming so much must be in mortal peril. An orgasm tore through her and she fell silent, unable to breathe or think or make a sound because every circuit was currently shorted out from pleasure. Edward grinned at her and started all over again.

She lost all sense of time, so she had no idea how long he pleasured her before finally sliding up to cover her body with his own. "Bella?" he whispered and it took a few bleary moments before she realized that was her name. She blinked a few times to focus her eyes. "This may hurt a little. I'm sorry."

She nodded.

She felt an insistent pressure which became a stinging burn. She hissed in a breath. All the romance novels she'd read assured her it was just a little bit of discomfort and then on to another orgasm but this _hurt_ and it would hurt even more if Edward wasn't taking half the pain.

He froze. "I can't. I'm hurting you."

Tears leaked from Bella's eyes. "Go on. I want to get this part over with."

He gritted his teeth and pressed his forehead into the crook of her neck, pushing forward until he was fully seated. Bela waited. The pain was supposed to go away now.

It didn't. He moved cautiously, and they both hissed. Bella clenched her eyes shut. "Go on."

"I can't," he said again and pulled out of her. Bella winced and then burst into tears, feeling like a failure. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Oh, Bella, sweetheart, don't be sorry," he said. "You didn't do anything wrong. It's not your fault."

What if there was something _wrong_ with her and she was never able to do this? What if-

"Stop," Edward commanded. "There is nothing wrong with you." He wiped the tears from her cheeks. "You need to stop reading those romance novels. Some women have a more difficult time than others."

Figures that she would be one of the more difficult ones. "Can we try again?" she asked.

He smiled at her softly. "Tomorrow, maybe, all right?"

It wasn't all right. She couldn't do the most simple thing in the world. She felt guilty. Before the ..._ failure_, he had given her so much pleasure and she hadn't given him anything. Maybe she could ...

"No," Edward said. "No, Bella, I'm not ... ." He paused, searching for the words and Bella closed her eyes. She'd killed his mood. It made her feel even worse.

"There's nothing I can say to make you feel better, is there?" he said sadly.

She shook her head.

He pulled her into his arms and Bella silently cried until she fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Bella woke covered in feathers. Literally. She had apparently pulled one of his wings over her in the night, using it as a blanket. Edward opened his eyes and blinked sleepily at her. "Is it time to get up?"<p>

She glanced at the clock. "No, you have another hour. Go back to sleep."

She rolled from under his wing and sat up, wincing. It was so totally unfair. Why couldn't she have been one of those girls who had a good, or even just _okay,_ first time? Poor Edward hadn't done this in two decades and he'd had to stop right when it was getting to the good part for him.

Edward reached out and traced a heart on her back. "I can't sleep when you're beating yourself up," he said.

"I'll go make breakfast." She stood and collected her clothes from the floor, which she deposited in the hamper. The hamper was empty because Edward loved going to the laundromat, strangely entertained by watching the clothes tumble in the washer and dryer. She took a long t-shirt out of her drawer and shrugged into it, heading to the kitchen.

She nearly tripped over the puppy, who was waiting in the doorway, his little tail wagging eagerly. She picked him up and he wiggled in her hands, licking her face. He probably needed to go outside.

"I've got him," Edward said, emerging from the bedroom dressed in his pajamas: a t-shirt and sweatpants.

"Don't forget shoes," Bella called to him as he headed for the door. He turned and went back to the closet and slid his feet into his sneakers.

She cracked a few eggs into a pan and turned the burner on low. She was reaching up to get the pancake mix from the cupboard when someone knocked at the door. Edward must have forgotten to bring his keys.

She opened it and gasped. Three ghostly figures stood on the other side, two males and a female. She could see them, the color of their skin and clothes, but they were wispy, like a projection on smoke. She could see right through them to the door on the other side of the hall. The man on the right flickered like a TV on the fritz.

Bella stared. _Ghosts_, she thought._ A trio of ghosts_.

"Where is Edward?" the man in the center asked.

"W-walking the d-dog," Bella stammered. She stared. She didn't even blink.

"Your eggs are burning," the woman said.

They passed through the door into the apartment, walking right through Bella, who stood frozen in shock. The woman went into the kitchen and turned off the burner, moving the pan to the sink where it hissed on contact with the water droplets in the bottom.

Edward appeared in front of her. "Bella?"

"Ghosts," she whispered.

"No, honey, not ghosts," he said. He gently took her shoulders and guided her inside to sit on the sofa. He put the puppy on the floor and it ran through the ghostly figures, bowing to try to engage them in play.

"What are you _doing here_?" Edward asked the three ... beings.

"We Fell," the woman said simply.

"Oh, no, _no_..." Edward whispered, his tone mournful. "Why? Why would you do that?"

"We're here to help with the rescue," the flickering man said, and then winked out of sight. "Sorry, I can't hold the visual yet."

"They're angels?" Bella asked Edward.

"Fallen angels,' Edward said grimly.

"I thought angels only Fell is their humans were ..." She glanced at the two ghostly figures. "... If their people went bad."

Edward shook his head. "We can choose it, choose to come to Earth without permission, but there are few who would be willing to sentence themselves to such an existence."

"You need our help," the woman interjected. "You can't do it with just the two of you."

Bella pictured the ghost army from _Lord of the Rings_. "Who are you?"

"I'm Jane's angel," the woman said.

"A woman?" She was tall, full figured and blond, a Marilyn Monroe type, wearing a pink sweater and skirt.

She nodded. "Jane needs a mother-figure," she said, her voice sad and wistful. "We become whatever our humans need, whatever would attract them to us."

Bella thought of poor Jane, how bitter and cruel she was at such a young age. Her angel probably would have Fallen from despair anyway.

"And you?" she asked the male she could still see. He was large, built like a linebacker with dark hair cropped short. "I belong to Alice," he said, and she had to look away from the terrible sadness in his eyes.

"And I belong to Esme," said the invisible angel. He winked back into sight, so faint that Bella could barely make out his image.

"Who is that?"

"She was one of the women at the facility," Edward said. "Remember, the woman with caramel-colored hair, the one who always sat alone at mealtimes?"

Bella vaguely recalled her. They had never spoken. In fact, she'd never seen the woman speak to anyone that she could recall.

"We have names now," the female angel said with a hint of pride in her voice. "They are names our humans like. Mine is Rose."

"Emmett," said the large angel.

"Carlisle," offered the angel who had lost his visual form again.

"Give us a few days to rest up and we'll be ready," Rose told Bella and Edward.

"I already went to the facility and scoped out the rotation of soldiers and the security measures," said Carlisle's disembodied voice. "We can come up with a plan of attack knowing what we're facing." It explained why he didn't have the energy to hold a visual image.

"You Fell so your people could be free?" Bella whispered. Tears formed in her eyes. The sacrifice they made was beyond losing the pleasures and comfort of Heaven. Here they would hunger, but be unable to eat; here they would thirst but be unable to drink. Here they would follow their human, but be unable to contact them, unable to give comfort or guidance, a maddening torture for an angel created for that purpose. And here they would remain until the day their human died, but they would not return to Heaven as Edward would with Bella. They would simply fade away to nothingness.

Bella's determination solidified. They had no choice now but to attempt a rescue. Like Jasper, Bella could not allow these three angels' sacrifice to be in vain.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

..

After a discussion with the dog regarding its preferences, Edward named the puppy Dave.

"Dave?" Bella repeated. "The puppy's name is _Dave_?"

Edward nodded. "He heard it on the television and liked it."

As it turned out, puppies loved Fallen angels. Dave spent the afternoon galloping around the living room, running through each angel in turn, something which he apparently found very entertaining. Carlisle, however, was his clear favorite because he sat on the floor and rolled a ball for Dave to fetch for hours at a time.

Carlisle didn't do it just to amuse the puppy. He and the other Fallen had to practice moving and carrying things. To do so, they had to concentrate their energy, much the same way Bella had to when she lifted something with her talent.

After a month of being left alone in the apartment while Edward worked at the docks, it was odd having company during the day. Rose and Emmett offered to help with the housework, but after Rose broke three dishes by dropping them in the sink after losing her concentration, Bella suggested that they should practice as Carlisle was doing.

"I'm really sorry, Bella," Rose said. She picked up the ceramic shards one by one and dropped them in the trash can.

"It's all right, Rose. I drop things all the time."

"We'll get better," Rose promised. "After we rest up a bit and practice, we'll be ready for battle."

"There's no rush. I don't think Edward has found a boat captain to help us yet." It was a delicate balance. Edward had to find someone willing to do something illegal and keep his mouth shut about what he saw and who was also trustworthy. Not too many people willing to engage in criminal activity fell into the "trustworthy" category.

Rose finished cleaning up the broken plate and put the garbage can back under the sink. She sighed softly.

"What is it?"

"I wish I could see Jane," Rose said. "I miss watching her already and it's only been half a day."

Bella thought for a moment how to best phrase her next question. "Rose, will Jane be all right if we get her away from the facility? She seems so ... traumatized."

"I hope so," Rose said grimly. "She doesn't have me any more. She's right on the edge, Bella. One push and she could turn ... mean. She needs love and a quiet place for her heart to heal. I'm so worried that she won't get what she needs if she goes home to her parents. Don't get me wrong, they're not bad people. They're just ... busy. Too busy for Jane. She spent far more time with her babysitter than she did with her family."

"That's sad. I always wondered why people had kids if they didn't want to spend time with them."

Rose tilted her head. "Do you want children, Bella?"

"Um, really I'm not sure. If I did, it would be later on, in the future. I couldn't bring a baby into this mess." Suddenly an awful thought occurred to her: what if her child inherited her abilities? Maybe it was for the best that Edward could not father a child. They could always adopt. She liked that idea, giving a loving home to a baby who needed it.

Dave bounded around the corner and slid across the linoleum. His feet did a Scooby-Doo scramble against the slick flooring before he got enough traction to propel himself to the water bowl, but once he reached his goal, he realized he couldn't stop. He stiffened all four legs and leaned back but would have smashed into the cabinet had Bella not quickly leaned down to catch him. He wagged his tail and gave her hand a lick before sticking his head in his water bowl and lapping frantically, like he'd just crossed the Sahara.

Bella stood and turned back to the sink. The pan in which the eggs had burned was soaking and Bella used a scrubbing sponge on it. "Rose, how did you pick your name?"

"I was Jane's 'invisible friend' when she was small," Rose said. "She gave me that name. I wasn't actually physically present with her, but she could hear me and her imagination did the rest. We had a lot of fun together. When she was around six, she slowly lost the ability to hear me. Everyone tried to convince hr that her 'invisible friend' wasn't real and I guess, eventually, she believed them."

Bella heard the vacuum cleaner start in the living room. She glanced over and saw Emmett struggling to push it forward. Dave jumped into its path and let out a stern little bark. He seemed so surprised that the sound had come out of him that he was knocked onto his backside. Dave, apparently, had decided that the vacuum was an enemy. He growled, chased it and dove in to nip at it and dash away before it could retaliate.

"Can you talk to him about that?" Bella asked Rose. "Tell him that Mr. Vacuum is a friend?"

Rose shook her head. "We lost that ability, just as we lost the ability to hear the thoughts of our humans. It's lonely being the only person in my head."

"That seems so strange to me, hearing another person's thoughts."

Rose traced a pattern in the water that had splashed on the counter top. "It's comforting, actually. I always knew that Jane was safe and I knew instantly when she needed me, when she needed comfort or strength or a little nudge to do the right thing. And my favorite part was the dreams. Just like our outward appearance, the human decides what we'll look like in their dreams, so one night I might be an astronaut, the next night a pony."

"What about when her dreams were bad? Did you have to play the bad guy roles?"

Rose shook her head. "That seems to be a hard-and-fast rule. We're only positive forces in our human's dreams. Poor Janie had a lot of bad dreams, especially right after she was taken. They were testing her power, but she can only use it on humans, so you can imagine what that was like for her. She feels pleasure when she uses her ability, so she was getting rewarded for doing things her subconscious knew were wrong. Her dreams reflected that inner conflict."

"What about Victoria? Jane said she was her new mother."

"Victoria has gone over to the dark side," Rose said grimly. "Her despair has twisted her."

Had Jacob paired Jane with Victoria intentionally, knowing that Victoria wouldn't try to restrain her from hurting people in the testing? The more she thought about it, the more it seemed likely. He wouldn't want Jane with a mother-figure who told her that hurting people was wrong.

"I just miss her so much," Rose whispered. "I didn't know the separation would be this hard. It's like losing half of myself."

"I'm so sorry, Rose," Bella said.

"I made my choice," Rose said softly. "If I could give Jane a chance to have a loving family and lead a normal life, how could I not make the sacrifice for her? She's worth it."

Emmett lost his grip on the vacuum's handle and cursed. He grabbed at it, but his hand passed right through. He tried again, then again, and cursed loudly, kicking at it, though his foot passed harmlessly through, frustration clearly written on his face.

"Emmett, I think it would be better if we waited until Edward comes home to talk to Dave about the vacuum," Bella said. She stepped on the pedal to turn it off and wrapped the cord. "He seems really agitated by it." Dave followed his now-silenced enemy as Bella wheeled it into the closet and dove in to give one last nip for good measure. Bella gently pushed him out of the closet with her foot and shut the door.

"I'm sorry," Emmett said. "I thought I could do it. I hate being weak."

"You're not weak," Bella replied. "You're just out of energy. You just need to rest up a bit."

"What if I'm never able to do this?" he asked, and Bella remembered a similar question she had asked herself last night.

"You will be," she said. "It just takes a little practice after you're rested, okay? Why don't you guys see if there's something on TV or watch a movie? We've got tons of DVDs."

Emmett brightened and immediately went over to the shelves that Edward had built. He'd thought it would be an easy task, building them. He'd gotten himself some scrap lumber and a hammer and nails and started pounding away. He worked for two evenings straight and while the results looked like a Dali painting, and bent nails protruded randomly from its surface, he was very proud of the shelves and Bella had told him that they were beautiful. And she had meant it.

Carlisle remained on the floor by the wall. Bella inwardly sighed and went over to talk to him. _Bella and Edward's Home for Wayward Angels, Counselor Swan speaking ... _She was just about out of pep-talk material.

"Are you all right?" she asked, and then cringed. What a stupid question.

Carlisle didn't take offense. "Just worried about Esme."

Bella tried to recall her Edward's description had brought a vague image to mind, but it wasn't distinct and she wasn't even sure she was remembering the right should have stuck out in Bella's mind, since she shared the same name as Bella's "aunt", but Bella could barely remember her. After all, there had been many residents who isolated themselves.

"She gave in to despair a long time ago," Carlisle said. "I was hanging on by a thread. It was either this or Fade and I couldn't leave her there. Not when there might be a chance to save her."

"We will save her," Bella said. 'Please, Carlisle, try to think positive thoughts. We need your strength. And once we rescue Esme, I'll tell her everything you say so that she'll know you're here and that you love her."

He shook his head. "You can't do that, Bella."

Bella set her jaw stubbornly. "Well, I _will_."

"No, I mean you literally _can't_ do it. If you try to speak of me to her, the words won't come out. If you try to write it, your hand will lose coordination."

If there's a will, there's a way around everything. She would find some way to let Esme know she wasn't truly alone.

"Come on," Bella said. "Come watch a movie with the others."

Carlisle nodded and rose to his feet. He took a seat on the floor in front of the sofa and Dave tried to jump up on his lap. But Carlisle didn't have a lap. Dave sat on the floor, inside Carlisle's ghostly image. With the doggy equivalent of a shrug, Dave turned around a few times and laid down.

_I've got a room full of half-invisible angels, and they're watching 'Ace Ventura'_, Bella thought. She shook her head and went back into the kitchen to finish the dishes. She stuck her hand into the water and withdrew it with a sharp hiss of pain; a shard of porcelain had fallen into the water and been unnoticed when Rose was picking up the pieces of the plate.

Rose was at her side in an instant. "Oh no, oh no!" she chanted. "I'm so sorry, Bella. Edward is going to be so angry at me!"

"No, he won't," Bella assured her. "It was an accident. Could you please go into the bathroom cabinet and get me a bandage?" Bella was starting to feel woozy from seeing and smelling the blood. Dave, who smelled it too and realized that the winged-man's mate was injured ran into the kitchen and braced his little legs in a defensive crouch in front of her. He had promised the winged-man that he would protect the female in exchange for food and a warm basket in which to sleep. He didn't know what had bit the female, but when he found it, there'd be hell to pay.

Rose walked right though the growling puppy and attached the bandage around Bella's finger. "That looks deep," she commented. "Are you sure you shouldn't go to the doctor?"

To do so, she'd have to leave the house and she was too afraid to go out and risk being recognized. She and Edward had been so happy in their little home and she wasn't ready to lose it yet. "I'll be fine," she said.

And, of course, the first thing Edward said when he came through the door is, "Your finger hurts."

Rose hung her head.

"Edward, it's _fine_," Bella insisted. "Just a little cut. I've had worse."

"Not when you're with three angels who are supposed to be protecting you," Edward said and glowered at the others. Carlisle blinked out of sight and Emmett looked like he wanted to sink down into the sofa cushions.

"Over-reactors, all of you," Bella declared. She went into the kitchen and pulled a package of hamburger from the refrigerator and the box of cheesy rice that went with it from the cupboard. Edward had helpfully translated all of the instructions from Spanish to English for her, writing on the back of every package in the cupboard with a black felt pen. What she was making was a dish akin to Hamburger Helper, but with rice instead of macaroni. It was a favorite of Edward's.

She fried the hamburger, chopping it finely and turned around to drain it at the sink and walked through Emmett. "Ooops! Didn't see you there," she said.

"My fault," he said. "It just smells so _good." _The longing in his gaze was painful to see.

Bella winced. "I'm sorry Emmett. Are we torturing you by eating in front of you?"

"No," he said. "You need to eat. I just didn't realize the hunger was going to be this bad. And the _thirst_ ... I tried drinking a glass of water and it poured right through me onto the floor. My throat feels like it's on fire, but there's nothing I can do to slake it."

_Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink._

"It's not fair," she said. "It's not fair that you're suffering for trying to do the right thing."

Emmett smiled slightly. "We're interfering with fate, Bella. Right now, the future is being re-written. If we go into that facility and kill a man, we also kill whatever children he may have had in the future, any grandchildren, any great-grandchildren and erasing all of their actions. One of them may have cured cancer or solved the mysteries of the unified field in physics. Or maybe one of them would have started a third world war. The entire history of the world might be different because of what we do. Do you see why the Highest One makes these rules?"

"No," Bella said bluntly. "Because you're still doing it. It didn't stop you. So what you're doing must _be_ fate, or else you wouldn't be here, right? God would have found a way to stop you if you were going to destroy the universe or whatever."

Emmett smiled sadly. "There are many paths that may be taken to get to a destination. But forcing a disruption may have enormous consequences unforseen."

"Well, I still think it stinks," Bella said. "No one should have to go through what you are enduring, especially if you're doing it for the right reasons."

"Are they the right reasons? The man that I may kill has an angel of his own, an angel who thinks he is just as important as my Alice. Alice may have special abilities, but I do not know what she will do with them, so I cannot say she has a task like you do. Is my Alice worth the lives we will take? I think so, but I'm a bit biased." With that, he winked out of sight.

Bella looked up and saw Edward in the doorway. "Where do they go when they do that?" she asked.

"We call it the Mists. It's a cool, gray place, empty of everything but yourself. It's like sleeping for us. We drift, and it helps restore our energy."

Bella sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't cook any more while they're here."

"Bella, it's like Emmett said; we have to eat. They would still be tormented even if we never ate in front of them. This is what they chose, Bella."

"He didn't know what he was getting into," Bella argued. "You live in heaven, in comfort. How can you know what it is to suffer if you've never felt pain? If you've never experienced hunger or thirst, how can you make an informed decision?"

"So, no evil person should ever go to hell? Because they've never felt its torments so they cannot make an informed decision whether they should commit evil deeds or not?"

"That's different. What Emmett, Carlisle and Rose did is not an evil deed. It's a technicality."

"That _technicality_ could end up changing the future."

"Yes, Emmett told me." Bella turned away and mixed the water and rice mix and put the skillet back on the stove. She set the egg timer.

"Bella, sometimes terrible things happen which are caused by people who had good intentions. Does it lessen their suffering in any way that the person who caused it meant well? We angels cannot see the future. We cannot know what the Highest One knows. We simply have to trust that-"

"Trust that God knows best?" Bella burst out. "What was World War Two, Edward? How was sixty million people dying _all for the best_?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"If someone could have killed Adolph Hitler as a baby, wouldn't that have been better?"

Edward didn't answer.

"Does God or the Highest One, whatever you want to call him, demand that you obey without question? _Theirs is not to wonder why; theirs is but to do or die_?"

"No, we're allowed to question. That doesn't mean we'll always get an answer. There are some things we're just not supposed to know. I can only guess, Bella. Maybe World War Two prevented an even greater tragedy."

"Like a steam release valve? Humanity gets its killing groove on and-"

"Bella, stop," Edward said gently. "You're angry. That's understandable. But know this: the Highest One loves his creation and does not _want_ suffering. That I know. I don't know how it works. I don't know if the Highest One is the scriptwriter or merely the director. I don't know if there truly is a reason for everything that happens. But I do know that there is no use in pointless resentment of things that cannot be changed."

Bella took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "You're right." She used her talent to give the rice a quick stir. "I just wish there was something I could do for them."

"We will," Edward promised. "When we rescue their humans." He took her into his arms and wrapped his wings around her, and as always, Bella was amazed at how such a simple gesture could give such comfort.

* * *

><p>Bella took a shower before bed. She was rinsing the conditioner out of her hair when she felt a pair of warm hands slide around her abdomen. "Mmm," she said, leaning back against Edward's body. He kissed her neck, nibbling his way up to her ear, making her shiver deliciously. She turned around to face him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Tilt your head back," he commanded, and helped finish the rinse, running his fingers through her hair, just to watch the shiny dark locks slide through his fingers.<p>

He turned off the water and picked her up, dashing from the bathroom across the little hall into the bedroom. She hoped they hadn't given any of the angels an eyeful.

"I'm all wet," she laughed as he went to lay her down on the bed.

"Hmm. Well, I'll have to fix that,", he replied, standing her on her feet. He knelt and started at her ankles, and proceeded to suck, kiss and lick every droplet from her skin. Her legs gave out by the time he reached her thighs and she sat down on the edge of the bed. "Excellent," he whispered. "Everything in perfect reach."

By the time he reached her breasts, her bones had dissolved into jelly and she was nothing but a quivering mass of endings that he played like a master musician. "Please," she whispered. "Let me touch you."

He laid down beside her, reclining on his side. "You're still all wet, too," she said.

Water tasted a lot better served off of Edward.

He stopped her when she reached his stomach. "I can't," he said. "I don't want it to end yet and the moment you touch me, it will be over."

He gently rolled her over onto her back and settled his body over hers. "Relax," he whispered.

She hadn't even realized she'd tensed up. She meant to say something along those lines when he kissed her, long, sweet and slow. "I love you," he said when he broke the kiss.

"And I love you," she said.

He froze. "Say it again."

"I love you, Edward."

He closed his eyes. "Once more."

"I love you." She reached up and brushed his messy hair back from his face. "I love you, I love you. A thousand times, I love you."

His smile was so sweet that it broke her heart a little. "Thank you. It's just that it's the first time you've said it and-" She cut him off with a kiss. He made a low moan in the back of his throat.

She felt him pushing against her and she tensed a little. He stopped, reached down and caressed her until she was a mindless bundle of nerves again and then slowly inched his way inside. There was only a slight bit of discomfort as her body adjusted to his and she smiled at his questioning glance. He held still for a long moment, making sure that she was comfortable before slowly beginning to move.

Bella's eyes flew open and she gasped. She suddenly understood why mankind would steal, lie, pay for, pray for and die for sex. It was the most incredible thing she'd ever felt. And it only got better. She muffled her screams against his neck, panting, gasping and licking at the flesh there as her nails dug into his lower back. She had thought that the pleasure he had given her before was the pinnacle of her capacity for rapture but she had been very, very wrong.

Edward arched over her, his wings extending out to their widest as a harsh groan tore from his throat. He sagged down onto her body, and she savored his delicious weight atop her. "I don't want to go back to heaven," he mumbled. "I'll stay right here."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

..

Edward was so late coming home the following evening that Bella was about to send one of the Fallen out to look for him. He was never late. They didn't have a telephone, so he couldn't call her. She was scared. What if something had happened to him? He couldn't be killed, but what if he was captured? Or badly injured in an accident at the docks?

When she finally heard his keys jingle outside the door, she ran to it just as Dave did. Bella pulled the door open and saw Edward standing there, still jabbing at the empty air with a key. He blinked in surprise to find the door gone and then raised his eyes. He gave her a huge smile. "Bella!" He started through the door but his feet tangled and he would have fell if Bella hadn't jumped to catch him. He snuggled against her, kissing her ear lobe and sucking it into his mouth. "Mmm. Your hair smells nice."

"Edward, you're _drunk!_" Bella gasped, catching a whiff of booze and stale cigarettes in his hair.

"Why yes, I believe I am," he replied and gave her a huge, goofy grin. "Guess what, Bella? I think I've got us a boat captain!"

"Did you meet him in the bar?" Bella asked.

"No, that's where he took me to discuss it. I had a beer and a whiskey and a tequila and some clear stuff I can't remember the name of. You don't drink, so your memories aren't any help."

The Fallen were watching this with expressions ranging from envy (Emmett) to disapproval (Carlisle.) She led him over to the sofa, where collapsed with a sigh of contentment. "There were naked ladies there, dancing," Edward reported. "But don't be mad because I didn't look." He covered his eyes with the palms of his hands.

"Edward, who is this guy and why did he take you to a strip club?"

"His name is Jenks. He has an old decosh- ... decomshed... deconshish-"

"Decommissioned?"

Edward tried to snap his fingers."That's it! _Dee-com-mish-und_ Coast Guard break-up-the-icer ship. " He fell over sideways on the sofa and looked up at Bella in adoration. "I love you. You're so smart."

"How much does he want?" Bella asked.

"Five thousand."

Bella's heart sank. That would take most of the rest of the money that Jasper had given them. She'd have to get a job, a daunting task in a country where she didn't speak the language and had no identification or immigration documentation.

"I'm sorry I made you worried," Edward said. "Maybe we should buy you another phone so I can call you if Jenks wants to go to the naked lady place again."

"How soon can he be ready?"

"He said a week, maybe two."

"He couldn't more specific?"

Edward yawned. "No. He says he has to sell some guns or something."

"He's a gun runner?" Bella was appalled.

"Is that a problem?"

Well, it's not like they had a lot of trustworthy criminals to choose from. "Is he dependable?"

Edward yawned again and squirmed across the sofa until he could lay his head in her lap. "You're so pretty," he sighed.

"Edward, is Jenks dependable?"

"That's what everyone says. He's never backed out on a deal."

"All right. We'll do it."

"That's great!" He jumped to his feet and snatched her up, transporting her to the bedroom so fast that her head spun. "Edward! What are you doing?"

"You said you wanted to do it. Well, I'm ready." He peered down at his jeans. "Well, not yet, but I will be in just a minute."

"That's not what I meant," Bella said, amused.

"Oh. Well ... do you want to?" he asked hopefully.

"I'm not so sure you _could_ right now."

"Sure I could. I'm-" He swayed on his feet and lost his balance. He made a grab for the foot board of the bed to steady himself, missed it entirely and crashed to the ground. "Ow!"

Bella crouched to help him up. "Are you okay?"

"I think I sprained my wing," he complained. "Look at it. The feathers are all bent."

She smoothed them down. "Better?

He peered over his shoulder at it and then beamed at her. "You fixed it!"

"Come on, let's get you into bed," she said. She held out a hand to help him stand. He took it, but used it instead to pull her against him, wrapping his wings around her. "I'm not sleepy," he whispered. He laid back against the floor pulling her down on top of him, still wrapped in that soft, white shield of his, which made the whole world disappear.

"I love you, Edward," she said.

He didn't reply. Puzzled, she looked up at his face and saw that he was sound asleep. Or passed out. One or the other. She chuckled and laid her head back down on his chest. She briefly considered urging him to get up onto the bed, but decided she was perfectly comfortable where she was.

* * *

><p>The next morning was Saturday, which was a good thing for poor Edward, who was in the merciless grip of his first hangover. She'd known immediately that he was in for misery when he emerged from the bedroom wearing her big sunglasses. "Why is the light so <em>bright<em> in here? Did you change the light bulbs?"

"No, it's the same light," she said. "Hungry?"

"Ugh, no." He shuddered. "My stomach feels strange."

"You're nauseated," Bella diagnosed. "It's normal after being drunk. I'll get you something for your headache." She went to the bathroom medicine cabinet and poured two aspirin into her hand. She got a couple for herself because her cut finger was throbbing. She took off the bandage and saw that it was red and puffy. She wished she had some peroxide to pour over it but no way was she sending Edward out in his condition.

She went back into the kitchen and brewed Edward a strong cup of tea, pouring in lots of sugar so he'd drink it all and then a dash of cold water so that it wouldn't scald him. He had his head buried in his arms on the table.

"Take these," she said, putting the aspirin in his hand.

He did, lifting his head a few inches and sipping at the tea. "I feel awful."

"I can tell," she said. She popped her two aspirins in her mouth and swallowed them with a sip of water. "And what lesson did we learn from this?"

"Not to mix beer with liquor?" Emmett suggested from the doorway.

"I didn't mix them," Edward insisted. "That would taste terrible."

"Not mix them _together. _Don't drink them at the same time."

"Does that work?" Edward asked Bella.

She shrugged. "How should I know? I don't drink."

"Why not?" Emmett asked.

Bella got down a box of cereal and took the milk from the fridge. "I was always afraid I might lift something with my mind in front of everyone or babble my secrets."

"You're afraid of losing control," Edward said.

"Behold, Lord Hangover waxes philosophical." And maybe she was teasing him to get everyone's mind off of what he'd just said. Because it was uncomfortably close to the truth.

"Dave is dancing by the door," Emmett told them.

"Oh, damn, I forgot to take him out," Edward groaned.

"It's okay. I'll do it," Emmett said.

When Dave came back inside, he shook droplets of water from his fur. Bella dried him off with a hand towel. Dave trotted over to Edward and stood on his back legs, bracing his front paws against Edward's thigh. He swatted at Edward's arm with his paw until Edward looked at him. Edward tilted his head and listened. "Thank you, Dave, but no, I don't think eating grass will make me feel better."

* * *

><p>On Sunday, Edward had recovered so Bella decided to go with her original plans for this weekend and take everyone down to the firing range for target practice. She intended to buy a gun for each of the angels from Jenks.<p>

The Fallen could appear as solid as the living for short periods of time now and only occasionally lost their grips on an object. They crowded around Bella when they left the house, blocking her from sight. Edward got a kick out of signalling for cabs and so they all stood back on the sidewalk while he whistled and waved.

All of them squeezed into a single cab, Rose sitting up front with the admiring driver and Emmett, Carlisle and Edward squeezed together on the back seat, Bella on Edward's lap. Never one to waste an opportunity, he kissed over Bella's neck, jaw and ear and then took her lips until Carlisle snapped at him, "Can't you keep your hands to yourself for five minutes?"

Edward froze and gave Carlisle a wounded look. "Did I do something wrong?"

Carlisle sighed. "No. I'm just ... envious, I suppose. You've got Bella and Emmett has Rose-"

"Emmett and Rose?" Bella and Edward chimed together. Rose kept her eyes pinned on the front windshield and said nothing.

Emmett squirmed "Um, we... uh ... Yeah."

"Well," Edward said into the yawning silence. "Congratulations?"

"We can't touch the living, but we _can_ touch each other," Emmett said, looking just a bit abashed. Bella had to wonder how much of it was genuine affection and how much of it was simple hunger for contact with another being. Whatever it was, it seemed to have improved Emmett and Rose's outlook somewhat and Bella hoped that it would help prevent the both of them from slipping into despair.

The driver pulled up to the firing range and they all clambered out onto the sidewalk, surrounding Bella again. Edward, the only one with an ID (purchased from another shady character he'd met at the docks) signed himself in and bought another box of ammunition for their handgun at a price which made Bella indignant, but the extra income made the range owner willing to look the other way while all of them used the same firing lane.

Once they began practicing, it didn't take long to discover that Edward couldn't shoot worth a damn. He had terrible aim, rarely even hitting the target card, let alone the bullseye. Bella, at first, thought that it was just an angel's natural distaste for a deadly weapon, but none of the other angels had a problem with it. After blowing through a box of the very expensive ammunition, Bella had to admit defeat. Edward would simply have to be armed with something else and rely on his speed.

Rose was a natural. At first, Bella thought she had to be missing the card too, but then realized that Rose was drilling all of her shots straight through a single hole in the center. Emmett and Carlisle stared at her in awe. Rose tried to help Edward by giving him some tips and even assisted him in getting his sight lined up properly, but he just couldn't do it. Bella could see he felt terrible about it and she tried to assure him that it was no big deal.

Bella herself could not shoot because her hand hurt like hell. It was the strangest thing. She'd had thousands of cuts in her life and they usually started feeling better in a couple of days, not worse. She took more aspirin when they returned to the apartment and started cooking dinner.

Dave, who'd worked up a thirst fetching the ball that Carlisle rolled, trotted into the kitchen, his nails clicking on the linoleum. He lapped up a satisfying drink of water from his bowl and then went over to Bella for a scratch behind the ears. He sniffed at her and let out a soft whine and went over to Edward, who was trimming a long piece of string from the beater-bar of the vacuum cleaner. (Emmett's fault; he had somehow caught the bottom ruffle of the sofa's upholstery and ripped off a long string from the hem.)

"What do you mean, Bella smells funny?" Edward asked Dave. "She smells just fine to me."

"Maybe it's the new detergent," Bella offered. Edward never did buy the same brand twice, liking the different scents on his clothes.

Emmett, who had taken a seat on the carpet in front of the television, called, "Guys, I think you should see this."

"Jesus Christ, it's Jasper," Bella moaned when she saw the image on the screen. Her own photo was up in the corner, to remind viewers to continue to watch for her. Jasper was seated in a chair in front of a beige wall, wearing the familiar beige scrubs. "Bella, if you see this, I'm asking for you to turn yourself in," Jasper said in a wooden tone. His eyes were dead and his face was oddly puffy. Down near the corner of his lip, she could see a bruise that the makeup didn't fully cover.

"Turn it off," Edward said as Bella turned to hide in his arms.

"They're _hurting_ him, Edward," Bella cried, her voice anguished.

Edward didn't deny it. He wrapped his wings around her and laid his cheek on top of her head.

"He knew this was going to happen," Bella said, her voice strained with tears. "Somehow, he knew. Remember, he told me to stay safe no matter what I saw. His talent isn't usually that detailed, but somehow he must have known."

"Bella, take this as a positive sign," Carlisle told her, his voice muffled by the wings that surrounded her. "He's still alive, which means we have a chance of getting him back."

"That wall was the same paint color they use at the facility," Edward said. He cupped her face and used his thumbs to gently wipe away her tears. "I'll be that's where they're keeping him. When we rescue the residents, we may be able to save Jasper, too."

Bella squeezed her eyes shut. Now, Jasper would have to go on the run, too, his career that he loved so much ruined. She felt a wave of hate for Jacob Black so intense that it made her tremble. She thought of Charlotte, his secretary, who loved Jasper like he was the son she'd never had. She hoped that Charlotte would see the video and know that Jasper was still alive, even though he was in "custody" for supposedly helping his sister with her terroristic plots.

"Jacob Black is a dead man," Bella swore.

* * *

><p>On Monday evening, Edward came home from work and told Bella that Jenks wanted to meet with her.<p>

"Why?"

"Curiosity, mainly." Edward shrugged. "Maybe he wants to make sure you're really not a terrorist."

"Aw, jeeze," Bella groaned. "When?"

"Tonight."

"At the strip club?" Bella asked warily.

Edward nodded. "I think he spends a lot of time there." Something which Edward clearly felt was strange behavior.

It was cold out that evening, so Bella bundled up in her parka and wrapped a scarf around her neck, using it to hide her lower face, like a bandit in a Western. Edward put his knit cap that he wore down at the docks on her head, tugging it low around her ears. "Does that help hide my face?" she asked.

"No, I just didn't want your ears to get cold."

The club was within walking distance, though being out on the street at night with Bella made Edward very nervous. He'd put one of the handguns in her pocket and he hovered around her anxiously, glaring at anyone who dared to pass by them on the sidewalk, including the little old lady with the walker.

The music was thumping so loudly that Bella could hear it outside the club. There was no bouncer, no line at the door. The place looked like a dive, the paint on the wood-panelled facade cracked and peeling, the darkened window caked with dirt. Edward pulled open the door and the heat and noise poured out. The only illumination inside seemed to be coming from the stages, where women writhed in various levels of undress, and from the bar itself. As he'd told Bella, Edward didn't even glance toward the women, leading her through the crowd toward the bar.

"What does Jenks look like?" Bella yelled to be heard over the music.

"Like this," Edward called, and changed into a stocky, blonde man in a Hawaiian shirt.

"Edward, don't change your appearance in front of people," Bella hissed, trying to block him from the sight of the crowd around them.

"They can't see," Edward told her. "Don't worry."

The man he had showed her was seated on a barstool at the far end of the bar, watching the action on the stages in avid interest while sipping from a short glass of brown liquid. Whiskey, she guessed.

"Hey, Edward," he said when he saw Bella's angel. He spoke in English with an American accent. "This must be the little lady."

"This is my Bella," Edward said with pride.

"Great disguise," Jenks said, eying Bella's bright red hair. "So you're the one who wants to take a boat ride."

Bella took off her coat and hung it on the back of her chair, fanning herself."Yes, me and some of my friends."

"How many of your _friends_ will be joining us?"

Bella had never made a count of all the residents of the facility. "About twenty," she guessed.

Jenks took another sip from his glass. "What are you two drinking?"

"Coke," Bella said.

Edward shuddered, remembering his hangover. "Coke for me, too, please."

Jenks gestured the bartender over and ordered their sodas. Bella averted her face and put a hand up as if she were scratching her eyebrow to hide her features. She needn't have bothered. The bartender barely glanced at them. He grimaced as if they'd ordered something unpalatable and plunked the glasses on the bar top after filling them from a hose. Jenks gave him a few pesos and he left to find more interesting customers.

"Good thing you caught me this week," Jenks said. "After this run, I'm taking the tub to southeast Asia for six months. Got a job lined up for me down there."

"I want to buy some guns and ammo," Bella told him. "Two handguns and four rifles."

"Got a caliber preference?"

She had no idea. "Whatever works well and isn't expensive."

Jenks snickered. "Semi or full auto?"

"Semi," Bella said. She remember from watching war movies that it was easy to run out of ammo with a weapon that fired on automatic.

"I got some AKs," Jenks offered.

Bella didn't know enough about guns to know what those were, outside of vague memories of seeing them in movies. "Are those good?"

"For what? Duck hunting? You gotta give me a scenario here, toots, or I won't be able to tell you what you need."

"Hypothetically, if we wanted to, say, raid a government installation with lots of soldiers guarding it?"

"Well, fuck me, you _are_ a terrorist," Jenks said with mild surprise. "Honey, if you're attacking Gitmo, count me out."

"It's not Gitmo," Bella ground out. "It's a hidden government facility for people with paranormal powers."

He arched a brow. "That's the best you can come up with, huh?"

Bella sighed. "Believe whatever you want. Just tell me what kind of guns to buy."

"AKs should be fine," Jenks said. "I'll also line you up with a few large-caliber handguns. If you're doing what I think you're doing, you're going to need more than one handgun per person."

"How much?"

Jenks smiled and sipped from his drink. "I'll throw 'em in for free, considering how much I'm charging for my little pleasure cruise. But keep it in mind, I am _not_ a combatant, and neither is any of my crew. If you don't make the rendezvous point at the agreed time, we'll leave without you."

"I understand," Bella said.

"I'll give the guns to Edward tomorrow so you can practice a bit with them before we go."

"Have you pinned down a date?" Bella asked.

"Not before next Tuesday," Jenks told her. "I won't be back in town until then."

Bella sighed. She was getting impatient. The longer they waited, the longer poor Jasper would be at their mercy. The thought tormented Bella.

"We have a lot of planning to do, Bella," Edward said. "We need the time to figure out our strategy."

"All right. We'll tentatively set the date for next Wednesday, then." She took a drink of her Coke.

"Agreed." Jenks held up his glass in salute and drained the contents. "Stay for a drink with me, Edward?"

Edward shook his head. "I want to go home. I haven't had sex in two days."

Bella spit out a mouthful of her soda and Jenks laughed. "I love this guy."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

..

Bella woke early the next morning. She had rolled over on her hand and the pain was enough to jolt her out of sound sleep. She looked over at Edward to make sure he hadn't been disturbed by it. Apparently, when he was asleep, he couldn't sense her pain and she was glad. She didn't need him worrying about her on top of everything else.

She went into the bathroom and removed her bandage. Even in the dim light from the single bulb on the medicine cabinet, she could see that it was infected. She gritted her teeth and washed it in the sink with soap and hot water, tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. She dried it gently and put on a new bandage.

In the living room, she found Carlisle staring at the television set, the volume turned down very low. Dave was curled up beside him, his paws twitching in his sleep. He was dreaming of cats, cats everywhere for him to chase.

"Where's Rose and Emmet?" she asked.

Without taking his eyes from the TV, Carlisle pointed at the closet.

"You're kidding."

He rolled his eyes.

"How long have they been in there?"

"Since yesterday." There was a note of longing in his tone and Bella knew that it wasn't because he was particularly interested in Rose; he just longed for contact.

Bella sighed and rubbed her forehead with her good hand. "I was going to ask Rose, but she's ... busy. Could you go to the store for me?"

"Sure. What do you need?"

"Some peroxide and antibacterial ointment." Bella eyed the closet door with some trepidation. "Uh ... My purse is in there."

Carlisle sighed. He rose to his feet and marched over to the closet door. He gave it a bang with his fist. "Oi! We need Bella's purse."

The door opened a crack and a female hand emerged, holding the purse by its strap. A wing popped through the opening and was pulled back by its owner. Carlisle shoved the door shut, catching the wing's bottom feathers. There was a yelp and the door opened again to pull them inside.

Bella fished through her purse for her wallet and opened it clumsily with one hand.

"Your wound really hurts," Carlisle observed.

"Yeah, and I think it's getting infected, hence the peroxide. But don't tell Edward, for God's sake. He'll freak out and want to put me in the hospital or something."

"Do you think you _should_ be?" Carlisle asked.

"No! Jeeze, it's just a stupid cut. I'm sure if I clean it out well, it will be fine."

Carlisle sighed. "I wish Esme were here."

_Okay, that was random_, Bella thought. "Soon, Carlisle. Only a week now."

He took the money Bella held out and headed out the door. With any luck, he would be back before Edward woke. She sat down on the sofa and turned the TV up to audible range, flipping through their small selection of channels. She found some cartoons and settled back beside Dave to watch She had picked up a little Spanish from watching children's shows, which tended to have simpler vocabularies.

Carlisle returned even more quickly than she'd hoped and handed her a brown plastic bottle and small, rectangular yellow box, along with the money she had given him. "Um, Carlisle? How did you pay for this?"

"I didn't," he said. "When I got there, I decided that you need to save what money you have."

"You _stole_ it?" Bella was aghast.

Carlisle shrugged. "I'm already Fallen. A few more sins won't make a difference."

Bella was really uncomfortable with that, but couldn't think of a response. "_It's just wrong,_" didn't seem like it would have much impact on him right now. She made a mental note to have Edward talk to Carlisle, not about this specific incident because she didn't want him to know what she'd needed from the store, but about his general demeanor. Carlisle was starting to worry her.

She went back into the bathroom and poured the peroxide over her cut, hissing a little in discomfort, and watched it bubble. Bella had the vague memory of her mother telling her that the more it bubbled, the more germs it was killing and that it should be reapplied until the bubbling was slight. She didn't know if that was correct, but she re-doused it and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Bella? Are you alright?" It was Edward's voice, right outside the door.

_Shit!_ "Just a minute!" she called. She smeared her finger with some of the ointment and put on a fresh bandage, then hid them under the sink where he never ventured. She opened the door and found her sleepy angel on the other side, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

"What hurt you?" he asked.

"I bumped my cut finger," she lied, keeping her mind carefully blank. "It's okay now."

He yawned and shuffled past her into the bathroom. She shut the door behind her. Edward never had caught onto the "bathroom privacy" concept and half the time he'd forget and leave the door standing wide open while he used it. She supposed that it was because angels never grew up being taught that bodily functions were dirty or embarrassing. They might see their humans learn it, but it wouldn't be ingrained into them.

Bella went into the kitchen and pulled down the box of pancake batter. Carlisle was still alone in the living room, and the closet door was still firmly shut, though she could see the tip of a feather poking under the door. Good grief. Didn't they ever take a break?

They were _still_ in there when Edward came home from work, carrying a large, lumpy object wrapped in a moving pad. He laid it on the floor after kissing Bella and unveiled the contents: Five AK-47 rifles and ten .45 caliber handguns. Each had several boxes of ammo.

Bella was awed. What was Jenks's angle, anyway? All of this had to be extremely expensive. She had never bought an illegally acquired firearm, but she imagined they didn't sell cheaply. The ammo alone was serious bucks.

"And look at this." Edward stood and reached behind his head and swiftly drew a long, curving sword from a sheath hidden beneath his coat. "Watch."

Bella jumped a little when the blade seemed to burst into fire. The orange flames danced along the surface of the blade. Bella reached out with her good hand and held it above the sword, but didn't feel any heat coming from them. She passed her hand through it. An illusion, and a damn scary one. She would have quailed if an angel with a flaming sword charged at her.

"Pretty cool, huh? It happens every time I draw it."

"Oh fuck, you didn't do it in front of Jenks, did you?"

"I don't think he saw," Edward said. "I put it away pretty quickly when I realized what was happening and he was busy checking the guns over."

Bella examined the sword, impressed by its lethal beauty. This wasn't a flea market replica meant to hang on someone's wall. This was a the real thing, beautifully crafted and perfectly balanced. There Japanese characters etched into the base of the blade. She certainly wasn't an expert on these things, but a sword like this couldn't come cheap and probably cost more than they were paying for the entire mission. It made no sense.

"Jenks collects them," Edward explained. "It's just borrowed, and the guns were left over from his last selling trip. He said he got them really cheap and sold the rest of them for a shitload."

Bella smiled. She could just hear Jenks describing his profits using that term. If they were around him for very long, Edward was going to pick up a very colorful vocabulary.

Edward's explanation made her feel marginally better about the weapons. Jenks wasn't running a charity, after all. He was a mercenary, and she didn't imagine they often gave discounts or tossed in free firepower just to be nice.

That night, they had their first planning session after prying Emmett and Rose our of the closet. Carlisle drew them a map and explained what security measures he had seen when he scoped out the facility upon their arrival on earth.

"The first obstacle is their radar system, which warns them of any approaching watercraft or airplanes," he said. "They don't monitor it constantly; an alarm sounds if something enters their zone. I couldn't tell what its range was. They check it at the change of every shift, just a cursory glance to make sure it's still running."

"If we disabled it, how long could we have before they discovered it?"

"Four hours, tops, unless we could figure out a way to keep it looking functional."

Bella made notes on a pad of paper.

"Most of the time, the guards in the monitoring station play cards, or read, or even watch TV. They're not expecting any trouble."

"Are they the ones who monitor the cameras inside the facility?" Bella asked.

Carlisle nodded. "I didn't see any other facilities with monitors, except for the ones inside the testing rooms."

"Is there any way to make the monitors play recorded footage like in _Ocean's Eleven_?"

"I don't know," Carlisle replied. "We should, perhaps, send a second scouting mission to see if it's possible."

Bella scribbled it down on her paper, chewing on the end of the pen between thoughts.

"What else?"

"There were twenty soldiers in the facility at all times, with twenty more off duty. They have quarters behind the gray metal door."

"If we could disable the door, could we trap the other troops inside so that we don't have to fight them if an alarm is sounded?"

"It's worth looking into. I didn't check to see how many ways there were out of the barracks."

"What do you think the likelihood of the residents joining us in battle would be?"

Carlisle shook his head. "Bella, yous saw them. Many of them are like my Esme, without hope. Some have been so brainwashed that they might fight us alongside the soldiers. There may be a few, but we can't count on them. And we can't waste time trying to convince the ones who don't want to leave. I'm not sure if they have backups somewhere else on the island, or how long it would take for them to get reinforcements from bases on the mainland."

"The island is about 600 miles from Ushuaia and the ship only goes about 25 miles per hour. It's going to take at least 24 hours to get there."

Bella turned to Edward, awe written on her features. "How did you fly that far with me?"

Edward's features were grim. "I had no other choice. It's open ocean between here and the island. I had to keep going or you would have died of exposure."

She thought of her poor angel, unused to the gravity and thick air, valiantly fighting to stay aloft over the icy sea, the life of woman he loved at stake. No wonder he had only been able to manage short distances in the days afterward. He had to be exhausted.

"It wasn't that bad," he told her softly. "I didn't lose strength from the trip down like the Fallen. Perhaps the Highest One granted me the strength I would need."

"Let's hope he's willing to give you another boost for this mission. I think we may need it."

"So, assuming we get past the radar, do we just charge on in?" Emmett asked.

"My idea was to try to hide and capture one of the doctors or soldiers, to use their keycard. Otherwise, we'd have to wait for shift change and hope to sneak in behind them. Those steel doors would be almost impossible for us to get through on our own."

"Bella could do it," Edward bragged, giving her a proud and fond smile.

"Probably," Carlisle conceded, "But we need to save her power for shielding and such. If she battered down the door, she would probably be out of commission for the rest of the mission."

Rose, who'd been absorbing this conversation silently, spoke up. "Let's imagine everything goes perfectly and we get in without being detected or showing up on the monitors. Do we use the keycard to start opening resident's doors and hope that they're willing to join with us? There will be some of them that are scared to help for fear of failure and reprisal."

"Well, yeah," Bella said. "The residents are our main goal, after all, and the sooner we can get them out and running for the ship, the better."

"Bella, they'll freeze," Emmett said suddenly. They don't have coats and boots."

"Can we take them from the soldiers? That would actually be a good idea if they wouldn't pursue us because they had no shoes."

They debated various strategies late into the night. Bella felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation. They were really going to do this. And with what Carlisle came up with, it just might work.

* * *

><p>Early in the morning, Bella left the apartment and walked down to the end of the hall where a payphone was hung on the wall for the residents' use (quite a few of the apartment building's residents didn't have phones of their own), Bella deposited a coin, and dialed the number on the card Jenks had given her in case they needed to set up any more meetings.<p>

His irritated voice answered on the third ring. "Jesus Christ. Eight A.M. Whoever this is, it better be important. _Muy_ fuckin' _importante_, get it?"

"Hello, Jenks, it's Bella."

His irritation subsided somewhat. "Hello, Bella. How's that man of yours?"

"He's well. Jenks, I need to ask you a question."

"Yeah?"

"Do you sell drugs?"

There was a long pause. "Can I call you back at the number on my Call ID?" he asked.

"Sure." Bella hung up the receiver and it rang almost instantly.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to talk about drug shit over phones registered in your name? I called you back on my disposable."

"Sorry. This is the first time I've ever made this kind of request."

He sighed. "What do you need, sugar? Mind you, I ain't sellin' you the hard shit. I like Edward too much for that."

"Penicillin."

There was a long pause and then Jenks let out a snort. Then a chuckle. Then he burst into howling laughter. "S- sorr- sorry. D- did you j-just say _penicillin_?"

"Yes."

More laughter. Bella waited until he had calmed. "About a week's worth, I think."

Jenks was still snickering. "Got a little _infection_ you need to clear up without Edward knowing, honey?"

His tone made Bella indignant. "It's not something like _that_,_" _she said.

"Good, 'cause I'd hate to think you were fuckin' around on that boy."

"I'm not. I wouldn't. I've got a cut on my finger that keeps getting redder. I don't want Edward to know just because I don't want him to worry, okay?"

"All right. I'm ... out of town at the moment, so I'll have one of my guys drop 'em in your mailbox this afternoon."

"How much?'

He snickered again. "Don't worry about it."

"You know, for a mercenary, you seem rather unconcerned about money."

"Bella, it's like, five bucks. Really. Don't worry about it."

"Thank you."

"Yeah, chickie. You keep an eye on that cut. Infections can get nasty."

Edward was still asleep when she went back to the apartment and she gave a huge sigh of relief. She went into the bedroom to wake him for work. He was lying on his stomach, nude as usual, with the sheet tangled around his legs. The morning sunshine streamed through through the window onto his wing, making it glow a brilliant, pearlescent white. She stood there for a moment, admiring the view. She wished she was an artist and could immortalize the sheer beauty of this scene. Without a doubt, the man had the most perfect ass that God had ever created.

"Why, thank you," Edward said. His eyes popped open and he grinned at her.

"How long have you been awake?" Bells tried to keep her mind blank.

"Since you came in and started ogling me." He propped himself up on a pillow, unabashedly naked.

Bella felt her face heat.

He crooked a finger at her in a come-hither motion.

"You need to get up and get ready for work," Bella said, her voice weak and unconvincing.

"We're not starting until ten this morning," Edward said. "Pleeeeeenty of time."

That sexy, hooded gaze of his was like a tractor beam, drawing her helplessly into his arms. He lifted the hem of her t-shirt and stuck his head beneath it. "Ooh, no bra!" he announced, and took happy advantage of the situation, licking and sucking at her nipples until she was writhing helplessly beneath him.

"Please," she gasped. "Touch me."

He blinked his pretty green eyes, trying to look innocent. "Where?"

"Argh! You know where. You can read my mind, remember?"

He slid down her sweatpants and underwear, his talented fingers unerringly finding her most sensitive spots. "Anything else you'd like me to do?" he purred.

"Oh, God, _anything_," Bella moaned.

"That's a very broad invitation," Edward whispered, his breath hot in her ear. "I have a very long list of the things I want to do to you." He flipped her over so that she lay on her stomach, draped over a small mound of pillows. "Ready for item number one?"

She was.

* * *

><p>The antibiotics apparently weren't working. Bella's hand throbbed and burned. By Friday, she could barely stand to have it covered by a bandage. She dumped some more peroxide over it, hissing through the sting. And to add to her troubles, she seemed to be getting the flu. She felt nauseated and weak, a little feverish to boot.<p>

"This cannot happen now," she told her body. This was their only chance. Jenks was leaving at the end of the month for his mysterious "job" in Southeast Asia. If they missed this window of opportunity, he wouldn't be back for six months and they wouldn't have the money to hire another boat, assuming they found someone trustworthy and willing.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide her infection from Edward. Dave kept telling him that Bella smelled funny, but he hadn't made the connection yet with her bandaged finger. Bella tried very hard not to think of it when he was awake and only tended the wound in the early mornings. She knew if he found out about it, he would scrub the mission.

A thought occurred to Bella: what if her fever was because of the wound and not actually a flu like she'd thought? She took a few aspirin and pushed the thought away. No matter what, she had to make it through this mission and afterwards, she'd go see a doctor about it. It was risky, she knew. She wasn't very well-informed about infections, other than what she'd read in novels and they didn't have an internet connection for her to look it up online.

Another terrible thought: what if they wanted to cut off her finger? Perhaps some of her reticence to seek medical attention was childish avoidance, like hiding beneath the bed during a house fire. What if she got gangrene? She peered closely at the wound, but didn't see any green, much to her relief. It was simply red, and the color extended down the length of her finger to her second knuckle in odd streaks. She tried to keep her hand out of view as much as possible. She was actually happy when their heat broke down on Wednesday, giving her an excuse to wear gloves in the apartment. For once, a slow-to-repair apartment manager was a good thing.

_Just four more days_, she told her body. _Please, just give me four more days and then we'll see a doctor._

She had to have faith that God would help her in any way necessary to allow her to complete this, her task, for which her life had been preserved when Jacob would have shot her in the snow. But even though she had proof of God's existence in the form of the angel curled up in their bed, faith was hard to come by.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

..

Bella didn't feel so great. But she'd made it onto Jenks's ship, and that was the important part.

On Saturday, Jenks had sent Edward a message via a very large and scary man who showed up at their door and announced that Jenks had returned earlier than expected and that they could leave on Sunday morning. Bella sent up a hearty prayer of thanks.

Edward, friendly and polite as always, had invited the evil-looking thug inside and offered him a Coke. The guy's look of surprise was priceless. Apparently, he wasn't used to people inviting him into their homes for a bit of refreshment. He found himself seated on the sofa, a glass of soda in his hand and a puppy on his lap that insisted upon being petted.

"Would you like to stay for dinner? My Bella is making spaghetti and it's very good."

The man's cruel-looking, glacial eyes had softened a bit and he had politely declined. He and Edward chatted for a few minutes while Bella hung back in the kitchen, a little too nervous to approach.

"He was one of the ship's crew," Edward said, after he left, "So, we'll probably see him during our journey."

Bella raised her eyebrows. "He seemed a little ... frightening."

Edward titled his head slightly. "More sad than mean, I think."

She had bumped her hand while cooking dinner and cried out from the pain before she could stop herself. Edward was at her side in an instant, eyes darting around to see what had hurt her. When he realized it must have been accidental, he sat down on one of the chairs and pulled her into his lap, rocking and murmuring to her softly. The pain instantly lessened and she realized he was taking half of it for her.

"Don't," she said.

"It's what I'm made for," he reminded her gently. "Why does your hand hurt so much? That's not normal, is it? Shouldn't it be healed by now?"

"No, it's not normal," Bella confessed. "It's a little infected, and I'll see a doctor about it when we get back, okay?"

He peered at her face. "You're hiding something."

Bella sighed. "I just don't want you to worry, all right?"

He kissed her. "I trust you, Bella. If you tell me it's nothing to worry about, then I won't."

She was glad that she'd improved in shielding her mind from him, or else he would have felt her guilt.

That evening, Edward lay on the floor with Dave and and explained to him that they'd be gone for a few days, but if they were gone more than four days, one for each paw, then he should not expect them to come back. It took Dave a while to catch on to the concept of counting, but he finally understood that each paw would represent one light-outside time.

Edward had moved the shelves he'd built to hold their DVDs and covered the top with blankets. He tied a towel to the handle of the living room window and showed Dave that if he jumped on top of the shelves and pulled at the towel, the window would open. Circling around the side of the building, right below the window, was a small ledge, wide enough for Dave to walk on and he could follow it to the back and from there, hop down onto the metal stairs that were the apartment building's back entrance. After a few trial runs, Dave was able to use his escape route to let himself outside that evening, and was even able to remember to pull the window closed again when he returned.

On Sunday morning Dave woke them very early by jumping into bed with them and pressing his cold muzzle against Edward's neck. He'd let himself out and the chill from the outdoors clung to his fur.

"I'll miss you too," Edward said. "But we should be home soon. Where are the others?"

He listened for a moment and a grin bloomed on his face which grew wider and wider.

"What is it?" Bella finally had to ask.

"Carlisle went out to buy some supplies, and apparently Rosalie and Emmett took advantage of his absence on the on the sofa. Dave saw them. He says they're in there trying to make puppies, but they must not have figured it out yet because they're trying many different methods, some of which _certainly_ won't result in puppies. He wants to know if he should give them some advice."

Bella giggled. Edward got up and carried Dave out into the kitchen, opening a can of wet dog food, Dave's favorite. He returned to the bedroom and shut the door firmly. "Wanna_ 'make puppies',_ Bella?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

One of the things Carlisle had "purchased" (though he hadn't taken any money from Bella's purse), was a fifty pound bag of dog food. Edward laid it down and slit it open from top to bottom. He then filled the bathtub with water and put Bella's kitchen stepstool beside it so that Dave could reach it. If they failed to return, Dave would at least have food for a while and clean water to drink. The rent was paid a month in advance, so as long as Dave remembered to close the window and didn't draw attention to an empty apartment, he should be safe for a little while.

Edward carried the small bag Bella had packed to the door and knelt down to pet Dave one last time before they left. Dave nuzzled and licked each one of them in turn and went to get his ball, which he deposited in Carlisle's hand.

"He says he know you like to roll it," Edward translated.

Carlisle blinked rapidly and thanked Dave by rubbing that itchy spot behind his collar that he couldn't reach and put the ball into his pocket. Bella could barely stand to look at him as Edward closed the apartment door behind them. He seemed so small and lonely, though he wagged his tail at them hopefully.

They walked down the hall and Bella let the tears fall. Edward put an arm around her shoulders. "We'll be back for him," he said. "I promise."

"I will see that he's cared for," Carlisle told her. "As long as my Esme isn't ..." He stopped and blinked rapidly again. Bella looked away. She knew what he meant. If Esme was killed in the rescue, he would quickly fade away from grief.

"You can count on us, too, Bella," Emmett said, speaking for Rose and himself. "I mean, odds are that at least one of us will make it, right?"

Bella chuckled. "Emmett, you have a wonderful way of putting things."

Jenks's ship sat at an infrequently used portion of the docks, far away from the other ships. It didn't look like anything she expected, much larger, for one. She had thought it would be the size of a yacht, but it turned out to be the size of a small cruise ship. Instead of the sharp prow she'd envisioned, its nose was rounded and fat and the ship was wider than she would have thought it would be. Near the bow, the word _"Volvo_" was painted in black block letters.

Jenks waited at the end of the gangplank, smoking a cigarette. He tossed it into the water when he saw them coming. "Hey."

"Good morning," Edward replied, clasping Jenks's extended hand. "Bella, you already know, but I'd like you to meet Rose, Emmett and Carlisle. They're part of my team."

"Small team," Jenks commented.

"Small, but effective," Edward said.

"Yeah. Come onboard, guys. Welcome to the _Volvo._"

"Did you give it that name?" Bella asked.

"Yeah."

"May I ask why?"

Jenks smirked. "You can ask, but I probably won't answer. I usually tell people that it's because a Volvo was my first car, but the real reason is quite a bit filthier."

"Oh." Bella did not inquire further.

The gangplank went across a short stretch of water into a door in the side of the ship. Once they were all on board, Jenks pulled the gangplank inside and shut the door, turning a flywheel to secure it. They walked down a narrow passageway that looked strangely industrial, with a painted gray floor and pipes running overhead and bits of machinery here and there. At the end, there was a set of plain metal stairs which they ascended to a comfortable room with sofas, and a large flatscreen TV on the wall surrounded by electronic gadgets and game systems. On the opposite wall, there was a fairly large selection of paperback books, to which Bella was immediately drawn. She only reluctantly followed the rest of the group, her eyes hungrily jumping from title to title.

The next room they entered was a small dining room. The long table had raised edges and was anchored to the floor, in case of rough seas, Jenks explained. The chairs were carved wood with damask-covered seats, much more elegant than she would have expected on a vessel such as this. The walls bore oil paintings, all with a nautical theme and though Bella was no expert in art, they looked quite good.

From the dining room, they entered another industrial-looking hallway. Jenks opened four bedroom doors. "Your bunks," he said. Each room was furnished identically with a queen-sized bed with a rectangular wood headboard in the center and a short, squat dresser with a TV on top against the wall beside the small "head", as Jenks called the bathrooms. There were small tables on each side of the beds with a lamp anchored to it.

"They're nice rooms," Bella complimented. "Thank you Jenks."

"We, uh, only need three rooms," Emmett said. "Rosie and I will share."

Jenks shrugged. "Fine. Now, here's the important part you need to remember: These areas that I just showed you are the only places you're permitted to be while on this ship. If I catch you anywhere else, I'll toss your ass overboard. Got it?"

They all nodded. Bella spoke up: "Is there any area of the deck that's permitted?"

"There's a door in the rec room that leads to a small deck up here, so you can go outside and watch the sunset and waves or commune with nature or whatever the fuck it is you want to do. But do _not_ leave this deck, or you're going to be swimming back to fuckin' Argentina."

"Got it." Bella nodded.

"All right. Gotta get this tub moving. I'll see all of you at dinner."

Bella claimed a bedroom at random and unpacked their small bag. Edward was eager to try the game systems and he had danced like a eager kid when he asked if she minded if he went to play. She smiled and told him to go have fun. When she had finished unpacking, which took only a few minutes, she went back into the rec room and found Edward and Emmett seated on the floor in front of the floor in front of the huge TV, their backs propped against the one of the sofas, trying to figure out how the games and controllers worked. Bella was unable to offer any instruction, and and apparently Alice had never played video games either because Emmett had no memories to work off of.

She spent some time looking over the library and found it to be a delightfully eclectic collection. Stephen King shared a shelf with Thomas Pinchon. Margaret Atwood was shelved next to Jean Auel, and Isaac Asimov had a shelf entirely dedicated to his well-worn works. There was a biography of Winston Churchill next to a bodice-ripper romance novel. And someone among the crew apparently had a thing for Jean Plaidy's fictionalized historical biographies because they took up a whole shelf of their own.

"It's not working!" Emmett complained, mashing the buttons on the controller.

"Let's try this," Edward suggested.

Bella went over to the door that led to the deck and paused with her hand on the knob. "Edward, I'm going out on deck."

"Put on a life jacket," Edward said, rising to his feet to get her one from the bin under the window.

"Edward, we haven't even left port yet."

He slipped it over her head and snapped the clasps. "Hang onto the rail. Be safe. And if you're going to wander further than I can see you through the window, please let me know."

Bella smiled. Her sweet over-protective angel. He could be exasperating at times, but she loved him, not in spite of it, but _because_ of it. It was part of who he was and she wouldn't change a thing.

He heard her thoughts and his eyes softened. He cupped her cheek and drew her in for a kiss.

Emmett cursed and she heard the sound of a controller being tossed on the floor. "Edward, make out with your human later. Help me with this!"

"You go play," she said. "I'll be right outside the door."

She went out and stepped up to the metal railing, gazing down at the water. It wasn't long before she felt the vibration of the engines powering up and the sound of churning water indicating their departure. The ship slowly edged away from the dock and headed out into the open water. Bella watched the waves and the birds that swooped over them and was mesmerized by the ocean's beauty. She watched as the land receded into the distance and finally vanished all together. The cool air felt good against her fevered skin.

"Dinner is in twenty minutes."

Bella jumped. Jenks climbed the forbidden stairs from a lower deck and joined her at the rail. "Let me see that hand of yours," he said.

Bella pulled off her glove and as gently as she could, removed her bandage. Jenks whistled. "Christ on a crutch, girl. You're working up a nice case of blood poisoning, there."

"I know." She took her hand back and replaced the bandage before she drew on her glove. "But going to a doctor was too risky, and we couldn't delay the mission."

"It sure as fuck _will_ be delayed if you fall into a coma from septic shock, honeybunch."

"It's not _that_ bad," Bella said.

"Girl, do you_ see_ those red streaks? That's fuckin' bad news. Since the penicillin didn't work, we might be looking at some sort of MRSA shit, here."

"I know!" Bella snapped. "But I had no choice. My face is all over TV, on wanted posters everywhere. Every time I left the house, it was a gamble, even with the hair and trying to hide my face as much as possible. I couldn't do that in a doctor's office. And if I got put in the hospital, we would have missed our window and we wouldn't have had the money to hire another boat."

"You should have told me," Jenks said. "I'd have given back the money if I knew you couldn't go because you were sick."

Bella gaped at him. "As I said before, you're strangely generous for a mercenary."

Jenks snorted. "I'm not doing this for the money. For Christ's sake, sweet pea, five grand won't even cover the cost of the fuckin' diesel."

"Why are you doing it, then?" Bella asked, shaking her head slowly in puzzlement.

"For Edward," Jenks said. He shrugged. "That, and I was bored."

"What do you mean 'for Edward'? Why would you do something like this for him?"

Jenks gave her a little smile. He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, offering the pack to her before putting it back in his shirt pocket. "Maybe I'm like Diogenes, searching for a fuckin' honest man. And that guy in there is the most honest man I have ever met."

Bella could only stare.

"I don't know what the fuck you people are up to but I know it can't be something bad. Not with him on your side. So, I figure what the fuck? I'll help you guys out and maybe get some good karma for a change."

"You're a good guy, Jenks," Bella said softly.

Jenks exhaled a stream of smoke. "Well, don't spread that around, okay? I've got my reputation as an asshole to protect. Listen, I've got a guy in the crew who was a medic during Desert Storm. He's not a doctor, but he knows how to clean a wound and he can shoot you up with some stronger germ-killin' shit, if you're willing."

"That would be great. Thanks."

"No problem." Jenks tossed his cigarette over board. "You hungry? Lauren made porkchops."

"Lauren? You have a girl in your crew?"

"Yeah, and before you go claimin' I'm all sexist and shit for puttin' her in the kitchen, she _likes_ cooking. We're all willing to take our turns in the galley, though most of us can't cook worth a damn."

Bella followed Jenks inside and followed him into the dining room. Edward was already seated at the table with an empty chair beside him. He stood when she entered, smiled and patted it. She sat and he pushed her chair in for her. Bella smiled shyly at the others seated around the table. Besides Jenks, the only other person she recognized was the huge, ugly man who had drunk a Coke in her living room. There were eight other men besides those two, and Bella ranked them mentally on a Badass scale of one to ten, and none ranked below a five. All of them looked like the kind of men Bella had seen in documentaries about prison: hard-eyed and tattooed, men who had seen the ugliest side of human nature and perhaps embraced it themselves.

A woman came out from the kitchen, bearing a large platter heaped with porkchops. She had silver-blond hair and rather protuberant blue eyes but her smile was sweet and welcoming. She laid the platter down and walked around the table to Bella's side, offering her hand. "Hi, Bella, I'm Lauren."

"Nice to meet you, Lauren."

She looked over at Edward. "Is this your husband?"

"Yes," Edward said, taking her hand in his. And it wasn't untruthful, Bella thought. He was her husband in every way that it mattered, lacking only a piece of paper to make it legal.

Lauren winked at her. "Lucky girl!"

She was introduced to Carlisle, Emmett and Rose. The men seated around the table offered their names, first names or nicknames only, Bella noted, and she felt the helpless frustration of knowing that it would be impossible for her to remember them. She hoped the angels would be better at retaining them than she would, but Rose and Emmett seemed to have their attention focused solely on one another.

Bella choked back a gasp as she noticed that Carlisle was starting to look slightly translucent. She bumped Rose with her elbow while everyone's attention was on Lauren coming through the door with another delightful-smelling dish, and jerked her chin at Carlisle. Rose looked and her eyes widened in alarm. She leaned over and whispered to him. Carlisle pushed harder and appeared solid again, but the strain was evident in his eyes. He rose from his seat. "My apologies, everyone, but I'm feeling unwell and need to go back to my quarters."

"Seasick?" Jenks asked. "I got some good shit you could take for that, if you need it."

Carlisle smiled, but it looked as false as if it had been painted on. "I have some in my room as well, but thank you for your kind offer. Excuse me, please." He pushed in his empty chair and departed, closing the door with a quiet _snick_.

Lauren looked nervously at the porkchops. "He isn't Jewish or anything, is he?"

"No, he's just battling a touch of the flu," Bella lied.

"I should have asked if any of you had dietary restrictions," Lauren worried.

"No, none of us have any issues. We'll eat just about anything."

"Can you make pancakes?" Edward asked eagerly.

Lauren smiled. "I sure can."

"Wait until you have her Belgian Waffles," said a man who rated about a 7 on the Badass Scale.

"Bulging waffles?" Edward asked.

"No, _Belgian_," Bella corrected.

Lauren bustled around, bringing more dishes to the table before taking a seat herself. "Everyone, dig in."

Bella wondered what Rose and Emmett were going to do and then saw their solution: her purse was sitting on Rose's chair and the food they pretended to eat was stuffed inside it. Bella inwardly sighed. She'd liked that bag.

The food was delicious. Edward ate like a starving man. After her bland and simple cooking, this meal must seem heavenly. Her own taste buds were singing the _Hallelujah Chorus_. Desert was French silk pie and she thought Edward was going to weep when he tried it.

"So," Jenks said abruptly, breaking up a heated debate amongst his crew on the subject of who was hotter, Angelina Jolie or Bar Rafaeli. "Who wants to participate in some crazy-ass raid on a government facility?"

"I'm in," said the ugly man who'd sat on her sofa.

Another added his assent immediately after him. "Oh yeah. I'm up for that."

"Sounds like fun."

"Why not?"

Bella cleared her throat. "Um, it could be dangerous. There are at least 20 soldiers guarding it."

The badass across the table from her blinked. "So?"

Bella exhaled slowly. "Can I trust you guys?"

"If Jenks tells us not to talk, we won't talk."

"All right. Watch." Bella focused on the nearly-empty porkchop platter and lifted it with her talent, letting it hover in the air over their heads.

"How are you doin' that?" the man across the table asked in tones of wonder.

"I'm telekinetic," Bella confessed. "I was kidnapped and put into this government research facility. Edward helped me escape and I've been on the run ever since." She lowered the platter back down to the table and the crew stared at it like it was

Jenks's eyes darted to Edward. "Are you tele-fuckin'-whatever too?"

Edward hesitated. Bella answered for him. "In a way. This thing we're doing ... we're going back to rescue the other people held in the facility."

"Just the five of you?" said a guy at the head of the table.

"What's your name again?"

"Everyone calls me Forks."

"Don't ask," Jenks said quickly.

"Um ... okay ... Forks, everyone on our team has talents of their own and you may see some things that are really strange. We don't know how the residents are going to react to an attempted rescue and that's one of the things that makes this so risky. Rose, Emmett and Carlisle have ... family in the facility, so we've got a vested interest in this. You guys could be in a lot of danger and I can't pay you anything."

Forks shrugged. "We can loot the fuckin' place, right? I'm sure there will be computers and shit we can sell."

Everyone around the table seemed to like that idea.

She offered one last caveat. "These are American soldiers we'll be fighting, so if anyone is uncomfortable with this ..."

"We're Canadian," Jenks said with a shrug.

"Oh. Okay then." Bella smiled at them. "Welcome aboard."

* * *

><p>Dave dreamt that the winged-man and his female had returned, bringing with them many cans of wetfood and they sat on the floor and petted him while he ate and ate-<p>

He jerked out of sleep and looked around the den, unsure if it had been real. Dark. Empty. He sniffed the air and smelled nothing but stale scents. He jumped off the sofa and trotted over to one of the smaller dens which had a hard covering that could only be moved by humans who grabbed the ball on its side with their strange, misshapen paws. The covering was open, so he stuck his head inside. There was no sign of the two winged-people who had spent so much time in this small den moaning because they could not figure out puppy-making. They had no scent, so Dave had to rely on his vision to confirm they were not inside.

He decided to check the den where the winged-man slept with his female. He could still smell them, and that strange scent which had clung to the female. Dave did not know what the scent meant, but his instincts told him it was bad and if the scent had been on him, he would have licked until it was gone. But the female had put coverings on her wounded paw even though Dave had indicated many times that he would be willing to lick it for her. (Humans had such short and useless tongues and their long, awkward bodies wouldn't let them flex enough to use them anyway. Dave had once seen the female use hers on the winged-man but she seemed very confused as to how the cleaning process was supposed to work.)

Dave hopped up onto the winged-man's bed and chose a spot to resume his sleep, turning around again and again until he was sure there was nothing sharp and then laid across the female's head-bed. Her scent rose around him and Dave gave a soft whimper. He missed her. She knew just the place where his collar itched him and was always willing to scratch it. He couldn't remember how long it was supposed to be before they came home. He had tried to remember what the winged-man told him about his paws and light-outside times but it had been very confusing and he had forgotten which paws had been used.

The winged-man had told him they were going to defend their territory from other humans that Dave thought of as _baddogs_, a terrible term that made him quail when he heard it applied to him, the worst thing he could think of to call them. The baddogs wanted to take the winged-man's female.

Dave heard a clatter and jumped to his feet, his heart pounding and his tail wagging madly. Was it the winged-man? Had he returned at long last? Joy suffused him and Dave bounded off the bed, wishing he were allowed to bark. He ran to the covering that blocked the entrance to the den and stuck his nose to the crack beneath it. Alarm made his body stiffen. This was not the scent of his humans. This was not a scent he recognized _at all_!

Dave crouched, growling low in his throat. He would defend the den against these baddogs who thought they could- Dave froze. A memory surfaced: the winged-man had told him to run if someone came into the den. He gave a soft whine and danced in indecision. If he successfully fought them off, perhaps the winged-man would call him a goodboy.

There was a scratching sound which raised the hairs on the back of Dave's neck. He retreated back a few feet and paced in indecision. The winged-man had given him a command, and he was only a goodboy when he obeyed. He trotted over to jump up on the blanket-covered object the winged-man had placed below the hard-clear- a very confusing substance since it looked like you could walk right through but it was solid- and pulled on the towel the winged-man had attached, (He liked this; he spent the afternoon tugging on it.) The hard-clear slid open and Dave hopped onto the ledge below it.

The den covering opened and three baddogs entered, one holding a tube of sunlight in his hands, and Dave caught the sharp, burnt scent of a shiny-bang. Those were frightening objects that emitted a loud noise and made things fall down dead from far away. Humans' body language was sometimes difficult to decipher, but Dave knew stealth when he saw it. They crept quietly into the winged-man's den. When they saw that there was no one inside they dropped the stealth and began vocalizing. Dave had always been a bit confused by this habit of humans. They made sounds almost constantly. Even when the winged-man was talking in his head, he was simultaneously making those sounds. But they wouldn't let Dave bark to vocalize with them. Dave figured it must intimidate them.

They began to open the smaller dens and pull out the pieces of flatfur that humans put on over their hairless skin. Dave growled deep in his throat at the way they threw around his humans' things; and they didn't even run to fetch them, so what was the point? One of the baddogs must have heard it even though humans were mostly deaf. (They barely had a sense of smell either; Dave wondered how they managed to navigate the world.) The baddog came toward where Dave was hiding, so Dave ran, his nails clicking on the hard path. His sense of smell guided him around the ledge safely when his eyes might have missed the edge in the dark. He hopped off the ledge onto the stairs and trotted down to the ground.

Forlorn at having to abaondon his den, Dave searched the soil for the scent of the winged-man in ever-widening circles until he found it. His tail wagged in delight. He followed it; the winged-man and his mate had walked this way relatively recently. It was a long walk and rather frightening as large roaring beasts which smelled like burning and had sunshine eyes ran at him. Dave dodged many of them on his way and they did not chase after him.

He picked up the smell of water, but it smelled funny to him and when he reached its edge and took a drink, he found that it tasted bad as well. He re-located the scent trail and followed it down a path right out over the water, but there it ended. He sniffed around carefully, but it did not pick up the trail anywhere else.

Dave sat down, confused. Humans liked water and got into it daily, smearing themselves with sweet-stink to try to mask their scent, though they called him a baddog when he rolled in a more effective stink outside. Could they have gone into this water? Dave leaned over the edge of the path as far as he dared, peering down into the murky water, but he saw no sign of them.

He sat down again and used his back paw to scratch his ear while he pondered this problem. Would they follow their scent trail back home? He had noticed that they tended to follow the same paths to and from locations. He would just have to wait here until they came back so that he could warn them that their territory had been invaded.

Dave laid down and put his head on his paws and watched the water stand up and curl as it came toward the land.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

..

After dinner, Jenks led Bella to what he called "sick bay", down two flights of stairs and through many twisting hallways that all looked the same. Edward had tried to insist on coming along, but Bella had urged him to go play video games with Emmett. Forks had offered to show them how to work the game system and they were both excited about it. She was probably just going to get a shot, she said, nothing major. She kept her thoughts casual and after a moment, he relented.

Her feet clomped loudly on the metal stairs. The lower they went, the more she could hear the dull roar of the engines and feel the vibrations through the floor. The hallways had a strange, subterranean feel to them and Bella guessed that was because of the lack of windows. It made her appreciate the nice bunks and large rec room they had been given. Bella had a touch of claustrophobia and was uncomfortable in this environment.

"What's the rule?" Jenks asked.

"If you catch me down here when I shouldn't be, you'll toss me overboard," Bella replied. It wasn't like she'd want to come down here anyway.

"Good girl. After your shot, I'll give you a lollipop."

He opened the door to a small room that looked like an ordinary doctor's office except for the fact that instead of anatomy posters and reminders to get flu shots, the walls were decorated with pornographic photos.

"Hop up on the table," Jenks said. He leaned against the counter and stared at her intently.

"What?" Bella asked, squirming under his appraising gaze.

"Just trying to figure you out. Why are you going back for those other people? You got away. Why are you risking your ass by going back? What's in it for you?"

Bella wished she had her sunglasses. "We're on a mission from God."

"Yeah, ha ha. Now, what's the real reason?"

"Actually, I was serious."

"Oh, Christ, you're not a fuckin' Bible thumper, are you?"

"No."

"Then what?"

Bella bit her lip. "Do you really need to know?"

He sighed. "No, I guess I don't."

The door opened and one of the men that she had met at dinner entered, a fellow she had ranked an eight on the badass scale. His hair was cropped so short that she could see his scalp beneath, except for a mohawk that ran up the center, dyed a violent shade of purple. He had put on a white coat over his t-shirt and jeans and he had a stethoscope strung around his neck. He closed the door, which had rounded corners, and gave the flywheel a spin.

"Collin," he said, sticking out his hand for her to shake. It bore a ring that was shaped like a skull.

Bella shook it. "Hi, Collin. I'm Bella. Nice to meet you."

"You probably won't be thinking that as soon as I start poking around on that finger," he said. He took her temperature and listened to her heart. Finally, he pulled away and draped the stethoscope around his neck again. "Your pulse and respiration are elevated and your temperature is over 100," he said. "Let me see that finger."

Bella carefully unwrapped her bandage and held it up for him to inspect. He winced as soon as he saw it. "How long has it been like this?"

Bella briefly described what had happened since her injury.

"I don't have the equipment to do cultures or a cell count, but I'm pretty sure you have septicemia. I'm going to hit you up with the best antibiotics I've got and give the wound a good cleaning, but if you were on my crew, I'd call in a helicopter and have you transported to the hospital immediately."

Bella shook her head.

"Yeah, I know. Jenks already told me. No hospitals. But listen, Bella, you're fucked up. This isn't something to shrug off. You could die."

"I know," Bella said. "Please, just do what you can and after this mission is over, I'll go to the hospital."

"If you make it that long," Collin said bluntly. He wheeled over a small table and positioned it beside her.

"I will. I have to."

"Fuckin' fanatics," Jenks muttered.

"Hold her," Collin said, and Bella suddenly understood why Jenks had stayed during her exam. He clamped onto her arm and held it down on the little table. Collin gave her a local anesthetic shot before he started, but Bella couldn't hold back the short scream that tore from her throat when he lanced the wound. The world seemed to gray out for a moment and when she returned to clarity, she realized that she was struggling against Jenks to try to escape, but he was far stronger than she and held her easily. Tears streamed from her eyes. It _hurt_. She knew it had to be done, but it fucking _hurt._

_Wham!_ something slammed into the metal door to the hallway.

"What the fuck?" Jenks was so surprised that he lost his grip on Bella and she yanked her hand away from Collin.

_Wham!_

"Bella!" Edward shouted. _Wham! _"Bella!"

_Wham!_

"Oh, shit," Jenks said.

_Wham!_

"You'd better let him in," Collin said.

"I'm not sure I want to," Jenks said, staring in shock at the dents appearing on the steel door.

"I think he's going to get in anyway, and it'll probably go better if you let him in rather than making him force his way inside."

"Why do I have to do it? Why not _you_?

"You're the fuckin' captain," Collin said.

"That means I get to delegate!"

"Jenks, open the door," Bella said.

"Better listen to her," Collin added.

Jenks groaned but made his way over to the door. "Edward! I'm opening the door!" he yelled and the _wham_s stopped. Jenks turned the fly wheel and backed away just in time to avoid being crushed like a bug when it crashed back against the wall as Edward rammed through, his flaming sword in one hand. He grabbed Bella and held her tightly against him, his sword pointed at Collin's throat. Both Jenks and Collin cowered back against the wall, their hands raised in surrender. Collin looked terrified, but his voice was calm. "Everything's okay. Please, calm down, Edward. You have Bella. She's safe."

Jenks's expression slowly changed to one of wonderment. "Angel," he whispered and slowly sank to his knees. Bella did not know if it was from reverence or that they had simply turned to jelly in the face of Edward's rage.

"We weren't trying to hurt her," Colin said, his voice low and soothing. "Please ..."

"I'm bleeding all over your wing," Bella told Edward, and fainted.

* * *

><p>She woke and the first thing she saw was Edward's eyes. He was laying on the bed beside her, leaning over her, gently stroking her hair back from her face. "Bella."<p>

She glanced around. They were back in their bunk room. An IV stand was next to the bed, holding up a bag of clear liquid. The tubing ran to the needle in the back of her hand.

"You're all right, Bella," Edward said. "You're safe."

She reached up with her free hand and cupped his cheek. "Whenever I see you, I know that I'm safe," she said. He nuzzled his face into her hand.

"What happened?"

"Collin finished cleaning your wound while you were out and then I brought you back up here. I'm supposed to give you a pill every four hours." He paused for a moment. "You're very sick, Bella. I know why you didn't tell me, but it hurts that you lied to me."

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry that you lied or sorry that I'm hurt by it?"

"I'm sorry that you're hurt," she confessed. "I just didn't want to worry you."

"That is what I'm made for. I'm the other half of your soul, Bella. The entire purpose of my existence is to take care of you, to comfort you, and to protect you. I cannot do that if you hide from me, and it hurts me when you won't let me fulfill my purpose."

Tears filled Bella's eyes. The pain she'd felt from Collin cleaning her wound was nothing compared to seeing the raw hurt on Edward's face. "I'm sorry ... I'm so sorry. Forgive me."

He laid down, his cheek against hers and covered her with his wing. "I do forgive you, Bella. I'm not angry. I understand why you did it, and you did it out of love." He lifted his head and gave her a small smile and a peck on the lips. "... in your own muddle-headed sort of way."

He laid his head back down, with a soft sigh. "Just ... please ... never lie to me again. It hurts to be cut off from you."

"Did Collin tell you everything?"

"Yes, I think so. He put an antibiotic in your IV bag that's commonly used to treat marsha."

"It's M.R.S.A. but a lot of people say it as 'mersa' or 'marsa'."

"What does M.R.S.A. stand for?"

"M-something-resistant-something-something. It means bacteria that's resistant to most antibiotics. I guess that's why the penicillin I took didn't work."

He squeezed her a little tighter, but said nothing.

"Jenks knows what you are," Bella said, half-statement, half-question.

"Yes."

"I'd imagine that flaming sword bit was a big give-away. How did he react?"

"I'm not sure. He was silent while Collin finished working on you."

"What about Collin?"

Edward chuckled. "From the way he acted, you would think he runs into angels on a daily basis." He snuggled closer to her and said, "Sleep now, Bella. You need your rest."

* * *

><p>"Bella."<p>

She groaned.

"Bella."

She opened her eyes. Edward was seated on the side of the bed with a glass of water and pills in his hand. Collin stood by the bed and before she could blink, he had pulled the IV from her hand. She'd woken several times in the night when he'd come in to switch out the bag, and also to take the pills that Edward brought her.

She sat up, groggily and took the tablets from Edward's hand, washing them down with a small sip of water.

"All of it," Edward coaxed.

She took a larger drink and her stomach churned with nausea. "I don't think I can," she told him, handing him the half-full glass.

"Drink it Bella," Collin commanded. "You have to stay well-hydrated to help avoid organ damage. That's what the IVs were for."

It took her a good fifteen minutes to swallow it all, but she managed to force it down without getting sick.

"Let's go take a shower," Edward suggested.

"I don't think we'll fit," she said. The shower cubicle was tiny.

"We'll fit," he promised.

They did, but only by dint of keeping their bodies pressed together, which seemed to have been his goal all along. He picked her up so that her face was on level with his and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he kissed her, and oh God, this man loved to kiss. It aroused her as much as his talented hands on her body. She was trembling by the time his mouth moved down to her neck. She sucked on his earlobe, an erogenous zone that always seemed to set him on fire and this time was no exception. He moaned against her neck, sucking in a bit of flesh to nip and thrust into her so deep, oh Jesus, so deep ...

She leaned back and braced her shoulders against the tile wall, her arms twined around his neck. "Harder," she whispered.

He complied, his breath coming out in hot pants against her throat. His fingers stroked her slippery flesh and an orgasm took her by surprise, triggering his own.

"I guess that's what they call a 'quickie', huh?" he said, a flush appearing on his cheekbones.

"Quick, but very effective," she replied. She unwrapped her still-wobbly legs from around his waist and he lowered her to her feet. "As much fun as it's been, I think you need to step out for me to get my shower," Bella said. "Your wings blocked the water and I haven't even got wet."

"Oh, you got wet all right," he grinned.

"Edward, did you just make a _dirty joke_?"

"Another first," he said cheerfully, stepping out of the cubicle, but staying right beside her as she quickly washed. When she was finished, he stepped back in himself while Bella wrapped her hair in a towel. He came up behind her while she was brushing her teeth, nipping that same spot on her neck. "Trying to leave a hickey?" she asked, smiling at his reflection.

"I'd like that. Every time I'd see it, I'd think of this morning."

"Every time I walk, I'll think of it," she said, savoring the delicious ache.

His face fell. "Was I too rough?"

"No." Her face pinkened. "I like it."

His eyes heated and they probably would have started up again if there hadn't been a knock at the door.

"Fuck!" Edward muttered (another first). He started for the door.

"Edward! Pants!" Bella said.

"Oh. Right."

He scooped up his discarded jeans from the night before and yanked them on, commando. "I'm coming," he called.

It was Jenks and he looked more subdued that Bella had ever seen. Dark circles smudged the skin beneath his eyes and he had the pallor of a man who hadn't slept but needed to. "Breakfast," he said. "Lauren made you pancakes, like you asked."

Edward's face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning who has just been told the biggest present under the tree is for them. "Pancakes!" he repeated. "Come on, Bella. Come on!"

"Shoes and shirt, Edward," Bella called. She was glad she'd brought her clothes with her into the bathroom so that she didn't have to walk out in front of Jenks in a towel.

He grunted with impatience, but pulled a sweater and socks from the bag.

Bella emerged from the bathroom and took the pink socks from his hand. "Those are mine." She fished in the bag and pulled out a pair of his which he yanked on in a flash, stuffing his feet into his hiking boots. The boots looked rather beat-up and Bella made a mental note to buy him some new shoes when this was all over.

He held her shoes for her, which she thought was very sweet, though she knew it was done out of pancake-lust. Edward bolted through the door, pulling Bella behind him, quiet Jenks trailing behind. They arrived in the dining room just in time to see Lauren enter, bearing a large platter of steaming pancakes. Edward tossed himself down in his chair and grabbed his fork and knife. He was polite enough to say good morning to Jenks's crew and to Emmett and Rose (Carlisle had not appeared), who had her purse between them to receive the food they pretended to eat, but his eyes were on the platter.

Edward waited his turn for the platter to reach him and then took half of what remained.

"Hey!" Forks complained.

"Oh, stop," Lauren said. "There's plenty more."

"You'd better get your syrup now," Bella warned. "He _drenches_ them."

"I'll get another pitcher." Lauren went back into the galley and came back a few minutes later with another plate full of pancakes and a bigger pitcher of heated syrup.

Bella only picked at her food and she noticed that Jenks hardly ate anything either. After the crew got up to leave, he asked Bella, Rose and Emmett to stay.

As soon as they were alone, he asked the Fallen, "Are you like him?"

Emmett and Rose looked over at Bella for guidance. "Yes, they are," Bella said.

Jenks tossed his napkin onto the table. "No wonder you were prepared to go in with just those three."

"Does this mean we don't have to fake eating any more?" Emmett asked.

Jenks cast him a puzzled look but Bella though Emmett's query merited first reply. "Yes, I think so. The crew was bound to see what you guys are when we're in action, and it's probably best that it doesn't take them by surprise. Jenks, do you want to tell them or should we tell them at lunch, when they're all together again?"

"I'll tell them," Jenks said. "They'd probably appreciate having the privacy to react honestly."

"What do you mean?"

Jenks closed his eyes. "Bella, that's a pretty big bomb you're dropping. '_Hey guys, God is real, and these are four of his angels.'_ If God is real, then hell is real too and that's going to cause a bit of ... consternation amongst my guys."

It dawned on Bella what he meant, and why Jenks seemed so subdued. A ship full of sinners suddenly realizing that the moral code they'd ignored was frighteningly valid.

"I need to know something," Jenks said. His eyes were intent, piercing and achingly sad. "Am I past redemption? You would know, right, if I were one of the damned?"

"The fact that you would even ask such a thing shows that you are not past redemption," Edward told him, his voice gentle.

Jenks abruptly rose from his chair and quickly strode from the room.

There was silence around the table for a few minutes until Bella spoke up. "Where is Carlisle?"

Emmett seemed to droop a little in his chair. "He's ... he's not doing so well, Bella. I'm afraid we're losing him."

"Before he sees Esme? I would think the hope of that might keep him going."

"The way he feels now, it seems to him like it would be a greater torment," Rose said. She looked down at her plate. "Like starving at a banquet."

"What can we do?" Bella begged. "There has to be _something_."

Rose shook her head. "If he's going to survive, it has to be through his own strength. There's nothing you can do for him, Bella."

But Bella suddenly thought of something, something that just might work, a loophole she hadn't thought of and hoped that Heaven hadn't thought of it either. Edward was staring at her, a grin slowly stretching his face. "It just might work," he whispered.

* * *

><p>Lunch was devoted to strategics.<p>

The men had taken Jenks's news surprisingly well, or perhaps all of the implications hadn't sunk in yet. They all wanted to see Edward's firey sword, so he fetched it from their bunk room and drew it from its sheathe.

The "oooh" that went around the room made Bella think of people watching a fireworks display.

Emmett was leaving in a few hours to do more reconnaissance at the facility.

"Why Emmett?" Bella asked. "Why not send Carlisle? He could tells us if there'd been any changes."

"If Carlisle goes and sees Esme, he might not come back," Rose said. "He wouldn't be able to help it in his state. He would just sit there, gazing at her, until he finally Faded away. His last sight would be her face. That's the way it is for our kind."

Bella's throat felt clogged with tears. "All right," she croaked. "Emmett, then."

Jenks told Emmett what to look for on the radar to identify the brand and model. One of the crew was a techie and would probably be able to tell them the radar's range capability, which would help them work out their time window more accurately. Edward drew a map of the facility, the parts of it they knew, anyway. Carlisle's input would have been helpful, but he was still in his bunk room, silent, translucent, slipping away more and more by the hour.

The ship had begun to encounter ice. Bella had gone out on the deck to watch, awed. The ship didn't ram into the ice as she'd pictured in her mind. Instead, they gunned the engine until the prow slid up on top of the ice due to its rounded shape, and then the ship's massive weight broke it.

"Ballast tanks."

Bella hear Jenks's voice behind her and turned to smile at him. "What's a ballast tank?"

"Huge tanks inside the ship which we fill with tens of thousands of gallons of water by opening a valve. It makes the ship heavier. We keep 'em half-full while we out at sea so the damn thing doesn't roll so much. These ships are badly designed for open water."

"Why did you buy this kind of ship? You don't do a lot of ... business in Antarctica, do you?"

He chuckled. "No, I don't. I bought it because it's as tough as hell, built to withstand the enormous pressures of ice. Some of the waters we sail have pirates and this thing is like a floating tank." He leaned on the rail, staring down at the water. "I'm not going to Asia," he said.

"Because of Edward?"

Jenks nodded. "Because of Edward. I always thought that God and heaven and hell were all fairy stories invented to keep people in line. Edward has changed my perspective, to say the least. I'm scared, Bella. I'm fucking _scared._ You don't know all the shit I've done. Edward told me that God has one rule: don't hurt people. And I've broken that rule so many times I couldn't even begin to count. I can't go back and change any of it, but I can keep from doing more."

"What are you going to do? Afterwards, I mean."

"I don't know."

Edward came out on deck, Bella's scarf in his hands. He gave her a reproving look and wrapped it around her neck and then pulled her into his arms, wrapping his wings around her, but leaving a gap at the top so she could watch the ice breaking. It was warm and cozy under his feathers. Bella nuzzled her face into them, inhaling his sweet scent.

"They're so _white_," Jenks said softly.

Bella was surprised. "You can see his wings?"

"Anyone who knows what I am can see them," Edward replied.

"Like that homeless man," Bella realized. "I thought he saw them because he reached out as if to touch them."

Edward looked sad for a moment. "His problem was that he saw too much."

"Are there demons?" Jenks asked abruptly.

Edward shook his head. "Not like you think. I guess people want to blame mankind's evils on an outside force, but human beings come up with enough evil all on their own."

Jenks leaned on the rail and buried his face in his hands. he rubbed his face briskly as if trying to wipe away his troubling thoughts. "All right. What do I do?"

"Listen to your angel," Edward replied.

Jenks was startled. His head swiveled to look at Edward with widened eyes. "I _have_ one?"

"There is still good in you, so yes, you do. We whisper in our humans' hearts, urging them toward the right path. We offer comfort when they're mourning and hope when all seems lost. The difficulty your kind seems to face is being willing to listen."

"I need to know what I have to do," Jenks insisted. "Can't you tell me?"

Edward shook his head. "Everyone's path is different. I only know my Bella, what she needs to hear."

"Will my angel ever come here? To earth?"

"I cannot say. It's rare that we're sent and if your angel Fell, you wouldn't be able to see him or her."

Jenks looked at Bella, wrapped snugly in her angel's wings and a flicker of jealousy passed over his face. "Was it her teleke-whatever that made her deserve her own angel on Earth?"

Bella was the one who answered. "I have a task to do, Jenks. The_ task_ is what's important, not me. I don't know what it is, but it's important enough that Edward was permitted to come down and save my life so that I could do it. I believe it has to do with freeing the others from the facility."

"So, you really weren't bullshitting about the mission from God."

"No, I wasn't. I just wish I knew for sure what it was."

"Is that why you didn't take care of your finger? You knew God would keep you alive?"

Bella shook her head. "No, it's as I told you. I don't think I could go to a doctor without being recognized and I knew we only had a short time window to do this mission."

"Let's turn around," Jenks said. "I told you, I'm not going to Asia now. So we have plenty of time to fix you up and get this thing planned out perfectly before we do it."

"I think I'm supposed to go now," Bella replied. Edward slid his hands into hers and clasped them. "Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I guess that's where the faith thing comes in, and maybe I've been given these challenges for a reason, too. Again, I don't know. Even standing here in my angel's arms, I still struggle with the idea of faith."

"Faith isn't blind belief, just as courage isn't a lack of fear," Edward said. He kissed the top of Bella's head. "Let's go inside, love. You're going to get chilled out here.

They went inside, but Jenks stayed where he was, leaning on the rail, trying to listen.

* * *

><p>Emmett returned from his spy mission with grim news: the base had been fortified with far more soldiers than Carlisle had seen. At least twice as many, he said, possibly more since he hadn't entered the barracks because no one had opened the door in the time he'd been there. Bella hoped it was just a reaction to her escape, not that they expected she was coming back in force.<p>

He had written down the make and model of the radar system and Ben, the crew's tech-savvy member, had known it immediately. "Range of twenty miles, tops," he said. This meant that the radar would need to have to be down for at least an hour before they could reach the island, possibly more, depending on how thick the ice was.

They planned their entrance. Tomorrow night, Emmett would return to the facility and take down the radar system right after shift change. They would bring the ship in as close as they could under the cover of darkness and hope like hell that no one heard the ice breaking. Emmett would then disable the doors of the barracks with a small explosive charge, hopefully trapping at least half the soldiers for the duration of their raid. He hadn't located a second exit, and they were praying that the blasted door was the only one.

The crew would be the second wave team, coming in after Bella, Edward and the Fallen had hopefully jumped a soldier or staff member in the dark and stolen their keycard. This was the most nebulous part of the plan because it relied on fate to supply them with a hapless victim, strolling around at night. If they couldn't get one, they would have to find another way in and that could raise an alarm. They had to be prepared for that possibility at any time.

Bella could throw up a shield large enough to cover their team, but she had to lower it in order for them to fire their weapons or the bullet would ricochet back on them. (Thank goodness Jenks had suggested they test it for permeability.) Maybe there was a way to make a one-way shield, but Bella hadn't gotten to those lessons yet before Jacob had decided to kill her. Neither could she make small holes for gunports.

As they came in, Jenks's team would spray-paint "X" on the snow every few yards, to give the escaped residents a visual path to the ship if there wasn't a team member to escort them. As Bella had suggested, they were going to strip the soldiers of their coats and boots and lock them up in the room beyond the yellow door, after disabling the elevator.

There were so many things that could go wrong. They were charging in, mostly blind, knowing little about the facility's safety features, how well it was protected or even if the residents would be willing to leave. But they had to try.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

..

Bella tapped on Carlisle's door. It was a while before he answered and when he opened it, Bella had to swallow back a gasp. He was insubstantial, merely a ghostly outline of what he had been.

"Yes?" His voice was hollow, toneless.

"I need to talk to you," Bella replied. "Please?"

There was a soft sigh, like wind through long grasses. "All right."

Bella sat down on the end of his bed and Carlisle sat on the chair in the corner. "I need your help," she said. "I can't remember Esme and I need to be able to identify her in case we get separated."

He didn't say anything.

"You know, it's funny," Bella continued. "I have a relative- well, she's not really my relative. She's a family friend, but I always called her my aunt. Anyway, her name is Esme, too. You'd think it would make your Esme stick out in my mind because it's an unusual name, but your Esme is like a blur in my memory. I can't picture her clearly. I want to make sure we get her, Carlisle. We know that there might be some who refuse to go, but we're going to make sure we get all of our people, come hell or high water. Can you please tell me about her?"

It was a long moment before he spoke. "She has hair like sunlight on honey, a rich, mellow caramel and her eyes are as blue as the sky in May. She's so beautiful, Bella. So very beautiful."

"She's shy, isn't she? So it may be hard to draw her out."

"No, she's not shy. She's just sad. She doesn't want to talk to anyone; she just wants to be left alone."

Bella persisted. "What should I do, Carlisle? There has to be some way to reach her."

"If I could only talk to her ..." Carlisle's voice was like the solemn tolling of church bells after a funeral. "If she could only feel the love I have for her. She stopped listening to me almost a year ago. I shouted it, Bella. I _screamed_ it to her, but she couldn't hear it. Her heart had gone deaf and empty. She lost hope and now there's nothing left, for either of us."

"I don't believe that, Carlisle. You sacrificed yourself for her. That cannot be the end of it."

Carlisle smiled. "You've seen too many movies, Bella. There isn't always a happy ending."

"I refuse to accept that," Bella said.

Carlisle shrugged. He started to blink out of sight as he did the first day she had seen him, when he'd been so low on energy that he could not hold a visual image of himself. Bella spoke quickly. "If there was one thing you could say to Esme, one message I could give her, what would it be?"

"You still think you can talk to her, don't you?" Carlisle was a faint apparition, a wisp of smoke. "I'd tell her how much I loved her, even though there aren't really words that can express it, and I'd tell her that she is _worthy_ of that love. That's what hurts me the most, Bella: that she believes herself to be unlovable. I've been inside her mind since the day she was conceived, and I _still_ can't understand why she'd think that way."

Edward had once told her that if you got an angel talking about their human, they wouldn't stop. Carlisle was no exception. Bella let him continue listing her virtues, everything he loved about her (and that list was long) and why she should be lauded as one of God's most special of creatures.

She was running out of time. She rose to her feet. "Thank you, Carlisle."

He seemed a little more substantial now, so perhaps talking about Esme had given him a little bit more strength. "I'm sorry I failed you, Bella. I failed my Esme."

"No you didn't. As long as you're still here, you're still fighting for her, Carlisle. Hold on for just a few hours more and you'll be with her again."

"I'd fly to her now if I could," Carlisle said. "I'd walk, I'd crawl. But I know I would never make it. The only chance I have is that you can bring me to her."

"You'll see her again, Carlisle. I swear it."

"Thank you," he said and disappeared entirely. Bella wondered if he'd gone to the Mists to regenerate or if he simply couldn't hold his visual representation any longer. Either way, she'd gotten what she came for.

* * *

><p>"Stay with me. Don't leave my side for any reason."<p>

"I won't, Edward."

"_Please,_ Bella."

"I won't. I promise."

They stood on the prow of the ship as it inched closer to the island, holding hands in the starlight. Edward pulled her into his arms, wrapping his wings around her, more for his comfort than hers.

He didn't want her to go. He'd tried to talk her out of it after dinner, and nothing is harder to resist than a begging angel, but Bella would not be swayed. This was something that she had to do, even if she wasn't at her best. Well, okay, that was a mild way of putting it. She was sick and probably in a lot of trouble, but she couldn't let that stop her.

_Hello, God? It's me, Bella. I could really use a bit of a miracle right now._

She hadn't been able to eat much at dinner and she was having a hard time following the conversation at the table, though Jenks's crew had more experience at combat and had more to offer in the way of strategy. She only hoped that Edward was paying attention, but she didn't think he was, given that he never took his eyes from her, those painfully sad emerald eyes that nearly broke her heart every time she looked at them.

"Stay with me," he repeated.

She looked down at the chunks of ice floating past the hull. "You jump, I jump, right?"

Jenks groaned from behind them. "No fuckin' _Titanic_ jokes, please? I'm begging you."

"Two miles out," said Forks. "A-team is go for launch."

Bella felt a blast of cold air as Edward unfurled his wings. Jenks gasped at the sight. It was a new moon; the only light came from the stars and his wings seemed to collect it and cast it back in a soft white glow.

"We shoulda spray-painted some camo on those goddam things," Ben said. "They stick out like a fuckin' sore thumb."

Jenks snickered. "Sore thumb."

"It's my index finger, actually." Bella picked up the large duffel bag lying on the deck and slug the strap diagonally across her body, holding it in her arms. It was so heavy that she wobbled for a moment, and she was grateful she didn't need to carry it.

Edward picked up Bella and gave her a little bounce to make sure he had a firm grip, then took off in a run. He leapt from the bow of the ship and there was that heart-stopping sensation of falling before his wings caught the air and they soared up into the night sky. Rose followed, with a limp Carlisle in her arms. _Please hold on_, Bella mentally begged him. _Just a little bit longer._

"I'm not sure he can," Edward whispered. "He's Fading fast, Bella."

_Oh, God, please help him. He may be Fallen, but he's still one of your creatures, and he needs help._

"Amen," Edward said.

Ben had told them to fly low, just in case something went wrong and the radar was reestablished. "That particular brand is overly-sensitive. Picks up flocks of birds and shit. Try to fly under it. Hopefully, if it does hit on you, your speed is slower than an aircraft, so they'll assume it's another false alarm."

"Ben, I don't think there are a lot of flocks of flying birds down here," Bella said.

"Penguins? They have penguins, don't they?"

Jenks smacked him on the back of the head. "Penguins don't fly, you dumbass."

"What, do I look like the goddam Crocodile Hunter or something? How the fuck would I know that? Never mind, then. Jesus!"

They were nearing the facility. Bella could see the outline of the small building that jutted up out of the snow, the chimney at the back where Jacob had dropped her in the snow. It made her shudder. Her heart thudded in her chest and her stomach had a horrible icy burn. She wanted to tell Edward to turn back, but she knew she couldn't lose her courage now. Not with Carlisle so close to the end.

Edward said something to her. She peered up at his face. "What?"

He repeated it, but the words made no sense. "Huh?"

His expression changed to one of concern. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah ... fine," she said. She shook her head to clear it.

He dipped his left wing and banked for landing behind a mound of snow behind the building. She heard his feet crunch on the snow when he landed, trotting forward a few steps because of his speed. Rose dropped down beside them, Carlisle still clutched to her chest. Emmett appeared and silently motioned to Rose to hand him over. Bella took off the duffel bag and unzipped it, passing a rifle and two pistols to Rose and handed Edward his sheathed katana. She armed herself with pistols; she couldn't use a rifle one-handed. She put an extra clip in each back pocket, just in case.

She handed Rose the small plastic case that Jenks had given them right before they left. It contained about a dozen tranquilizer syringes that Collin had mixed for them once he learned of the angels' reluctance to kill. He warned them that he wasn't able to calibrate the dosage for weight as he would if he was anesthetizing a patient and he couldn't guarantee that none of them would have an adverse reaction, but it was safer than trying to knock people out with a blow to the head.

They watched the building silently, waiting. Bella trembled, but not from cold. A soldier emerged from the front and she heard Rose suck in a breath. He leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. Rose opened the case and fished out a syringe. She laid Carlisle down and vanished.

A moment later, the soldier said "Ow!" and smacked his shoulder like he thought he'd been stung by an insect. Seconds later, he dropped like a stone, face-down in the snow. Rose reappeared and gently rolled him over so he wouldn't smother and searched his pockets. She held up his keycard with a grin of triumph. She returned to Bella and Edward and took Carlisle up into her arms again.

"We can't leave him there," Edward said. "He'll freeze."

"We have to, for the time being," Rose said. "We'll come back for him later."

"No, Rose. We need to drag him inside with us."

Rose groaned. They slipped from behind the mound of snow around to the door in what Bella was thinking of as the "kill zone", where Jacob had dropped her in the snow. She shuddered again when she saw it, but refused to let her mind dwell on those memories.

Rose checked her watch. "Ten, nine, eight-"

_Boom! _Emmett exploded the charge on the door of the barracks. He was carrying a bag of plastic explosives and fuses, which Jenks just "happened" to have on board. Emmett was the sort that exemplified the statement, "_To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."_ Bella expected he'd want to put explosives on everything now.

Emmett stumbled through the snow toward them, his clothes shredded and his face blackened. "Forgot to stand back," he muttered when Bella surveyed the damage. She shook her head and thanked God that the charge on the door had been a small one or they'd currently be tucking the pieces of him into the duffel bag to reassemble later.

Rose shook her head in exasperation. Edward grabbed the solidier by the heels and dragged him over. Bella took the keycard from Rose and ran it through the reader beside the door. A green light flashed and she heard a buzz and then the click of the bolt disengaging. She turned the knob and the door swung open. She started to step inside and Edward stuck his arm across the opening to stop her. He held up a finger for her to wait and then walked inside first. He returned in just a few moments and motioned them forward, grabbing the solider's feet again and pulling him inside the room. Bella followed closely behind him, Rose and Emmett right behind her.

The room was dark and silent. They crept along, crouched low. Bella turned to Emmett and made a motion like she was taking a photograph and Emmett nodded. The cameras were down.

They came to the elevator and Emmett pushed the button. Bella remembered Edward's delight in pushing elevator buttons and smiled, her mind wandering off into the memory. A Musak version of _The Girl from Ipanema_ crooned from the speaker above, striking a bizarrely incongruous note. Emmett punched the speaker, shattering and silencing it. Bella smiled at him gratefully.

But maybe the silence was worse. It seemed to ring in her ears, growing louder by the second, a high-pitched buzzing that made her head ache. She blinked. Edward was saying something to her again but she just couldn't make sense of the words. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes.

Edward gently pulled the keycard from her hand and slid it through the elevator's reader. Only then did the door close and the car begin to descend.

She heard Edward's voice again, oddly coming from the left when he was standing on her right. "What?"

Edward shook his head. "I didn't say anything."

"Against the walls," Emmett ordered as the car came to a halt. They all flattened themselves against the walls and he stood in the center, gun held at the ready, his wings spread wide to shield those behind him. Was he solid enough to stop a bullet, Bella wondered?

The doors opened. No one. Emmett let out the breath he'd been holding in a whoosh and stepped out of the elevator, looking left and right before motioning the others to follow.

Bella glanced at her watch. Soon Jenks's crew would be arriving. The amended plan, once the crew had considered their options, was to create a diversion. They would openly attack the facility, hopefully drawing most of the soldiers to them.

Lauren had emerged from the kitchen that evening with dark brown hair, the dye courtesy of one of the crew members (who would remain nameless) that had prematurely graying hair. "If they see a girl with long brown hair, they may assume it's you," Lauren had said. Or was she saying it now?

No, it was Rose, and her brows were crunched together with worry. "Bella?"

_Focus, Bella_. She felt so hot under all these layers. She pulled off her knit cap and stuffed it into her pocket while she unbuttoned her coat. She stumbled, her feet tangling around each other and Edward caught her before she could fall. "I've got you," he said, and his voice was so warm and soothing she just wanted to sink into his arms, like sinking into a soft, comfortable bed.

They reached the yellow door and took positions along the wall, crouched low. Edward reached over and slid the key through the reader but instead of a green light, there was a little buzz and a red light flashed.

"Oh, fuck," Emmett said.

Edward swiped the card again and got the same results.

"Do you think the soldier didn't have access or did they find him and cancel the card?" Rose whispered. As if anyone knew.

Emmett set his bag of plastic explosives on the ground and took out a block of the grey-white putty-like substance. "I guess we just knock loudly, huh?"

But the door suddenly started to open on its own. Edward whirled Bella around and pressed her against the wall, covering her body with his own. He drew his sword, holding it at the ready.

A tiny figure barreled through the door. "Bella! You've got to get out of here!"

"_Alice_?" Bella said. Alice looked like she'd been beaten within an inch of her life. In one bloody, gnarled hand, she held a keycard and Bella saw the feet of an unconscious guard sticking out from behind the doorway.

"Bella, you've got to get out of here," Alice repeated, desperation coating her voice. "They know you're here. They knew you were coming. I- I betrayed you, Bella."

Bella felt no anger, only compassion for this poor, tormented girl. "I wouldn't be able to stand up to torture either, Alice."

_Boom!_ A distant explosion from above. Jenks and his men had arrived.

Alice spoke quickly. "Quil and Jane are waiting for you in their rooms. I was able to tell them before ... I told them to tell the others, but I don't know if they were able to spread the word or not."

Bella caught sight of Emmet. He was staring at Alice in adoration, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Alice ... my Alice."

"Emmett! Snap out of it!" Bella barked.

"My Alice."

Bella shoved him to get his attention. He tore his eyes away to glance at Bella, but they went right back to his human. "Emmett, you have to focus, or we won't be able to get Alice out of here." Bella said.

"Who are you talking to?" Alice asked, bewilderd at the sight of Bella shoving empty air.

"It's a long story. Come on, we need to start freeing the others." Bella hurried into the hallway where the residential rooms were. Emmett hovered over Alice, unable to look away.

"Best count him out, at least for a while," Edward told her.

Bella slid the keycard through the first door's reader. It flashed green and Bella opened the door.

"Duck!" Alice screamed and she did, narrowly avoiding a being bashed in the head.

"Bella?" Quil said. He held a leg broken from of his coffee table in his hands. "Shit! Sorry! Thought you'd be one of them."

"Next time, let me go in first," Edward said, his eyes reproachful.

"It's okay, Quil." She reached into the duffel that Edward carried and pulled out a rifle. "Careful. It's loaded."

Quil nodded. "What's the plan?"

"Gather everyone up and run for the ship, pretty much."

He blinked. "That's the best you could come up with? Jesus, Bella. You suck at this."

"Yeah, I know. Let's go."

They headed across the hall. "Amanda's room," Quil said. "You go on. Jane's in the next one."

Bella swiped the card for him and headed over to the room beside Quil's sliding the keycard through. Jane opened the door herself. "Bella!" She grabbed Bella in a hug. "I can't believe it! You're really here! Alice said you were coming but I didn't believe it."

"I'm glad to see you, Jane."

Rose made a soft sound. Bella looked over at her and her heart broke a little to see the pain on Rose's features. She reached out a hand and tried to caress Jane's cheek, but it passed right through her.

"Later, Rose, please," Bella begged. Rose shuddered and closed her eyes and nodded.

"Who are you talking to?" Jane asked, just as Alice had.

"I'll explain later." Bella cast a smile at the confused-looking girl who had exited from her room and stood in the hallway, looking from one newcomer to the next. Bella dashed over to the next door, unlocking it for Quil before moving on to the next.

She entered behind Edward, but didn't see anyone at first, and then she made out the shape of a person attempting to hide under the desk in the corner. Bella stepped toward. "Hi, I'm Bella. Don't be afraid. We're here to help you."

"Go away!" the woman shouted.

"We're escaping the island. We can take you back to your family."

"No! No! Go away!"

"She's afraid, Bella," Edward said unnecessarily.

Bella sighed. Should they drag her out, kicking and screaming, or let her stay? "We'll come back for her," Bella decided. "Come on."

She and Edward stepped into the hallway and a shot rang out. Edward grabbed Bella and spun around, crouching down, shielding Bella with his body, his wings wrapped tightly around her, before Bella could even react. She pushed Edward's feathers apart, trying to see what was going on, where she should throw her shield.

"I got it," Jane said, and pushed down the rifle as Quil lifted it. She glanced in the direction from which the shots had come and Bella heard a man scream. It was a horrible, endless sound, raw and primal, the sound of a human in utter agony. Jane smiled.

Rose darted forward and took the soldier's gun. She dragged him by his feet down the hall toward their small group, pushing open the door to Amanda's room and tossing him inside. "Janey, honey, you can stop now," she said, but of course, Jane didn't hear her.

"There are invisible people with you?" Jane asked, a little fearfully, as she watched the soldier scoot across the floor, his feet elevated.

"Yes, but don't worry, they're not anything to be afraid of. I promise, I'll explain later."

The man still screamed behind Amanda's door. "Okay, Jane, let him go," Bella said. "Save your energy."

"I never get tired doing this," Jane said, her tone soft and dreamy.

"You need to stop." Bella could still him shrieking and it gave her chills. "Come on, Jane, you're going to freak out the other residents if they hear him."

"Oh, all right," Jane said, a bit of a pout pushing out her lower lip.

Bella glanced over at Rose and saw that Carlisle was nearly gone. "Which door is Esme's?" she asked Quil.

"Who?" Quil looked confused.

"The invisible lady," Jane said. "I know. I'll show you."

Invisible lady? What did Jane mean by that? Bella followed her down the hall and swiped the card through the reader by the door Jane indicated. She gave Jane the card. "Open the rest of them. Get everyone together, as quick as you can."

She pushed open Esme's door. Rose followed her silently into the dark room. Bella felt around on the wall until she found the light switch. When the lights came on, they saw a woman with caramel-colored hair, laying in bed, still and silent.

"Esme?" Bella said. "Esme?"

The faintest of sounds came from the woman. Carlisle stirred in Rose's arms and gave a soft moan. He tried to reach toward her, but his hand fell limp. Rose laid him down beside Esme, and he rolled to his side to stare at her hungrily. His hands passed through her, but still he tried to touch her, tried to stroke her face and smooth her hair.

"I don't know if you remember me, Esme, but I'm Bella. I've come to rescue you. We're leaving the facility."

The woman finally spoke and her voice was as soft as wind on snow. "Leave me. Just go."

"We can't leave you. You have to come with us." Bella pulled her blankets away. "Come on, Esme. We have to go."

And then the strangest thing happened. Esme seemed to fade out of sight, even as Bella was looking straight at her. She wasn't invisible. She just seemed to fade into the bed below her. Bella's eyes slid right over her. She blinked, trying hard to focus, but she was having difficulty with that anyway. That was her power, Bella realized, the ability to vanish from the sight of those who looked right at her, to blend like a chameleon, to become an indistinct memory that no one would be able to recall with clarity. S_he'd make the perfect assassin,_ Bella thought grimly. _She could do it in front of a room full of people and no one would be able to describe her._

"Edward, can you see her?"

"Yes."

"Can you carry her out into the hall and ask Quil or one of the other guys to carry her?"

"No!" Carlisle snarled. "Leave her alone!" He laid his wing over Esme and glared balefully at Bella.

Edward bent to scoop Esme off the bed and Carlisle struck at him, his fists passing through Edward harmlessly. He gave a horrible groan and crawled after her, but fell down onto the bed. "No! Don't take her from me, please!"

"We're not, Carlisle. I promise. We're taking her to the ship and you're coming too, okay?" She nodded at Rose, who lifted him in her arms, ignoring his weak struggles.

There was another distant explosion and the lights flickered. Bella heard cries of alarm from the people in the hall. "We've got to get moving."

They rejoined the others in the hallway. "There are some who won't come," Alice said, distressed.

"We can't save them if they won't let us," Bella replied. "We can't carry everyone."

Another explosion, this one inside the facility itself, which sounded like it came from beyond the gray door. A panel of lights fell from the ceiling in a shower of sparks.

"Let's go!" Alice cried.

Bella and Edward led the group, running back the way they'd come. Some of the people stopped in their tracks when they saw the yellow door, the door through which no one returned. Bella heard cries of alarm. What was it she'd been told about the yellow door? Bella stopped and stared at it. It seemed more like a curtain than a door, waving and bulging the way it was. Edward stepped in front of her, his lips moving ... sounds. She couldn't stand up any more. Her head was spinning. He head boots clomping on the floor, shouts, screams of fear. Edward covered her with his wings and everything was okay again, safe inside that soft, white world.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

..

_Jasper sat down with Bella at the empty cafeteria table. It was known as the "loser's table". As they got older, it would get more colorful names, but its status remained the same: the table where the kids with no friends sat, the table at which bits of food would be thrown to the sound of snickers, the table which symbolized social ostracism. But this had been back before Tyler, back when Bella was still just thought of as a weirdo, a convenient person to be designated the bottom of the totem pole. Every school had to have its reject.  
><em>

_"Go sit with your friends," Bella urged her brother. She pulled a book from her backpack and laid it on the table to read. She read during lunch, she read during recess, her goal to escape her peers into a world where the good guys always won and the evil and cruel always got their just deserts._

_Jasper was not a loser. He was athletic and good-looking, which assured him a sizable group of friends. He could be over at one of the noisy, crowded tables with the popular kids. "I want to sit with you," he insisted, his jaw set in stubborn lines._

_Bella was touched that he would join her in exile, but she didn't want that for him. "Go on, Jazzy," she said. "I'm going to read anyway and you'd just distract me." Bella opened her brown paper bag and fished out her peanut butter sandwich._

_Jasper opened his own bag. "I'm not leaving you here."_

"Bella? Bella?"

Edward's voice sounded urgent. Bella blinked her eyes to clear them and saw his face right above hers. He was holding her around the waist and shoulders so she wouldn't fall. Something was happening, wasn't it? She remembered-

There was a rapid burst of gunfire and someone shouted, "Take that, fuckers!" Quil.

"What-?" Bella said. She looked around, but she was enfolded in Edward's wings and all she could see was white. "Edward, let me go."

"No," he said, and buried his face in her hair.

"Edward, come on!" Bella struggled but she might as well have been pushing against steel girders. "The others need us. Let me go!"

He lifted his head to look at her and his eyes were so sad, so achingly sad. But he complied, pulling his wings away and dropping his arms. For a moment, Bella wished he hadn't. She saw bodies laying over by the hallway to the residents' rooms, bodies and blood and shredded flesh. She quickly looked away and saw that her group was pinned down behind pallets inside the room behind the yellow door. Jane knelt behind Quil, her hands pressed over her ears. She looked terrified and when Quil popped up to fire off a few more shots, she gave a soft cry, squeezing her eyes even more tightly shut. Rose sang to her softly and stroked her ghostly hand into Jane's hair.

Bella threw up a shield across the doorway. "Emmett!" she yelled. Emmett's head popped up from the back of the group where's he'd sat beside Alice, as rapt as Narcissus staring into the pool. "Shield is up. Get everyone up to the surface and head for the ship."

"They can't see me!" Emmett shouted.

Fuck, she'd forgotten. Okay, that was a major goddam flaw in her plan, right there. She looked at Edward.

"No," he said.

"Edward, you're the only one-"

"No!"

"Please, Edward. Please? We came here to save them, and you're the only one who can lead them out."

"I can't leave you. I can't ..." He shook his head.

"Edward, listen to me. These people are the reason why we came. You're the only one who can take them to the ship. You don't have to go the entire way; just show them the markings in the snow and come right back."

"No ..." Edward's eyes were so agonized that she had to look away. "Come with us."

"I can't leave yet. Not until I find Jasper. I'll be fine. I'll shield myself and hide. You won't be gone long. Please, Edward. I'm begging you."

He pressed a fierce kiss to her lips and his eyes traveled over her face as though he were memorizing it, and then he stood. "Everyone, follow me! Come on, Bella has us shielded. Let's go!"

The people cautiously crept from behind the pallet. There was a rapid burst of gunfire and they screamed, hunching instinctively, but the bullets ricocheted off of Bella's shield. They all crammed into the elevator, packed together as tightly as fish in a bucket. Bella reached inside and slid the card through the reader and hit the button for the surface. "Be careful everyone." She stepped back and the door slid closed, cutting off her view of Edward's worried face.

She let out a shaky breath. She turned and walked back toward the pallets where Quil had forgotten his gun. Someone shot at her and Bella turned toward them angrily. She slung the gun over her shoulder and walked to the doorway. "Stop that!" she snapped. There were three or four soldiers in the hallway, using the bodies of their fallen comrades as cover.

"I don't want to hurt you, but I will!" she shouted. "Drop your weapons and get out of here."

They ignored her and continued to fire. Bella felt the hot stings against her shield.

The television suddenly blinked to life and Bella jumped. One of the soldiers fired at it instinctively, but missed. Jacob's face filled the screen. Well, half of it looked like his face, anyway. The other half was scarred and pitted and he wore an eyepatch. "Hello, Bella," he spat. "What the fuck did you do to your hair? You look like Little Orphan Annie."

"And you look like Captain Hook," Bella replied equably.

Jacob narrowed his eye. "I believe I have something of yours."

He moved around to the back of the camera, which shook for a moment as he turned it. Bella felt the breath whoosh from her lungs as though she'd been punched. Jasper lay on a wheeled hospital-type gurney. His face was untouched, but his body was a mass of welts, cuts and bruises. She searched the image for clues as to where they might be and saw it: the corner of a dark blue curtain. They were in the smaller gymnasium, the one which had a stage where Jacob had said the residents sometimes performed plays, though there hadn't been one while Bella was at the facility.

"He's a bit worse for wear, but he's still alive," Jacob said. "For now."

"You promised," Jasper whispered into her ear. He was standing beside her, shirtless, which was odd because Jasper was very self-conscious about his chest and never went around without a shirt on. He was a mess of bloody wounds. "You promised you wouldn't risk yourself for me."

"I'm not leaving you here," Bella said.

"Who the fuck are you talking to?" Jacob demanded. Jasper vanished.

"Let him go, Jacob," Bella said. "Let him go and I'll let you live."

Jacob laughed. "I don't think you're exactly in the condition to be making threats, Bella. Your hunch-backed buddy isn't with you and from what I can see on infrared, you're running one hell of a temperature."

Hunch-backed? Oh, he must be seeing the shape of Edward's wings. Bella giggled.

"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Jacob snapped. He jabbed Jasper in the ribs with something that looked like a remote control and Jasper arched up off the gurney. Jasper's feet jittered in a macabre, bizarrely cheerful dance and a high-pitched whine came from his throat.

Rage. Hot and red. One of the soldiers in the hallway took the chance that she might be distracted and fired at her and Bella swatted him like a bug. The other soldier let out a horrified shriek when he saw what had happened to him and dropped his rifle with a clatter, running for the yellow door. Bella let him go.

She lowered her head and looked up at the camera on the ceiling. "I'm coming for you, Jacob, and you'd better fucking hope that I don't find you."

Jacob smirked and reached out to switch off the camera. The television screen went black.

Bella started down the hallway, stepping over the wide pool of blood around a flattened corpse (_Did I do that?_) and heading straight back for the research rooms. The gymnasium was the last door on the left. Bella didn't pause. She knocked it down with her talent and strode inside, her body humming with rage. Power thrummed along every nerve ending.

Jacob was nowhere to be seen. Jasper laid on a gurney in the center of the stage, motionless. Bella didn't stop to think, which had always been one of her problems. She broke into a run, her feet pounding up the short set of steps to the stage. "Jazzy!" she called. She reached his side and suddenly, the world gave way.

Below the stage, there was a pit where props and scenery could be raised through trap doors to appear as if by magic. Bella plunged through the trapdoor that Jacob had rigged, landing on the cement floor ten feet below with a bone-cracking thud. _Pain_. For a moment, Bella couldn't even breathe, it hurt so badly. Her rifle skidded off into the shadows beneath a pile of background scenery. _Pain_. Bella tried to sit up and fell back to the floor with a groan.

Jacob laughed. "I thought you wouldn't think to catch yourself with your talent, and I was right. You should have worked harder in your training, Bella." He held up a hypodermic and squirted some liquid from the tip. "You're so fucking predictable."

He jabbed at her thigh with the needle and Bella slammed him against the wall with her power. The hypodermic fell from his hand and rolled across the floor.

"Kill him," Jasper told her. "He thought you'd be too hurt from the fall to fight back, but he was wrong."

Bella tried to stand and gave a small scream of pain. Her leg was badly broken. She looked down at it and saw a spreading patch of red on her jeans. The pain fed into her anger and she felt her power swelling, crackling along her limbs like lightning. It frightened her a little because it felt like if she didn't release the charge soon, she might explode with it. She lifted herself upright with her talent and floated over to Jacob, who had regained consciousness and was groaning as he struggled to sit up. Bella slammed him again, lifting him high against the wall like a butterfly pinned to a board. Bella felt him probing her mind, looking for a weak spot.

"Kill him," Jasper urged, and he was the Jasper who'd sat with her at the loser's table all those years ago. "Just like you did to Tyler."

A door burst open to her right and Bella saw one of the men who had kidnapped her. His name was ... something with an "M", wasn't it? Bella struck out at him, but as if he'd seen her power coming, he ducked and rushed at her, knocking into her like a football player and driving her back against the wall. Bella struck again and this time, he flew back, crashing into a pile of props. She felt a jab in her mind as Jacob used her distraction to find a weak spot and she cried out, losing her focus for a moment. She crashed to the floor and screamed in agony when she landed on her broken leg. Jacob rolled over and grabbed the hypodermic and stabbed it at Bella. She flashed up a shield which broke the needle when Jacob connected with it.

He growled in frustration and grabbed a two-by four, swinging it at her head. Bella barely had time to block it before M-something grabbed her from behind.

_Focus_, she shouted at herself, but despite the huge power which thrummed through her, she was having trouble directing it properly. She slammed M-something (_Mike, maybe?)_ away from her with brutal force and she heard the sound of snapping bones even before he crashed into the wall. Jacob surged to his feet and tried to run but Bella flung him against the wall with Mike, whose neck was twisted at a crazy angle. She held them both, and lifted herself from the ground, hovering a foot or so from the floor. Her hair floated around in slow, undulant waves, as though she were underwater.

"It's not over," Jacob choked.

"For you it is," she replied. She pictured the heart thumping in his chest.

"No!" Jacob stabbed at her mind, but couldn't find an opening. She knew he was seeing what she pictured and it gave her a small, savage delight. She squeezed. The heart tried to pump around the pressure, valiantly struggling to do its job. She squeezed harder, _harder_. Jacob screamed, frantic to escape. Bella met his eyes and crushed his heart into a pulp. She released him and let him fall to the cement floor.

She heard a cry, a terrible, heart-rending wail, and saw the ghostly image of a female angel kneeling over his lifeless form. It was a hallucination. It had to be. Jacob's angel had to have Faded or Fallen decades ago. but the soft, agonized keening tore at her heart.

She turned to Mike, who was staring at Jacob's body in horror. His neck had healed and his head was back in its proper alignment.

"Do I have to kill you, too?" Bella asked.

"No," he said quickly. "Let me go and I won't touch any of you."

She dropped him. He got to his feet and bolted for the door, running like he feared she might change her mind. She waited until he was gone and then floated back up through the trap door to where Jasper was still lying on the gurney, his breathing labored. He was pale. So pale.

"I've got you, Jazzy," she said. "We're getting out of here."

She pulled the gurney behind her, and lifted it down to the gymnasium floor. It rolled behind her as she floated out of the gym into the hallway. Another batch of soldiers had taken position at the end of the hall, aiming their guns into space beyond the yellow door. Bella felt a sound rise in her throat, something akin to a snarl. She had no time to deal with these fuckers.

_Bella smash!_ she thought, and giggled crazily. One of them started to turn toward the sound but never made it. Bella didn't even have to lift the gurney when she got to where they had been. There was nothing left.

Oh, wait! There were still people in their rooms. Bella knocked down doors, too tired and irritable to bother with the keycard. The woman who had been hiding under the table screamed bloody murder when she saw Bella, so Bella simply picked her up and floated her out of the room. By the time she reached the end of the hallway, she had three recalcitrant residents bobbing in the air behind her, trailing Jasper's rolling gurney.

She punched the button for the elevator and nothing happened. The button didn't even light up, nor did the keycard reader when she slid the card through. She would have to take them through the gray door and up the stairs. Bella turned to walk back the way she came and fell into another memory.

_"Who wants to go to stupid fucking prom anyway?" Jasper asked._

_"Jasper! Language!" Renee scolded._

_"Sorry, mom. Seriously, Belly-Bean, we're not missing anything. Buncha girls in tacky sequined polyester dresses and guys in ill-ftting rented tuxes eating a bad catered meal and dancing in a gymnasium covered in paper decorations. It's a waste of time."_

_Bella dried her tears and tried to smile at her brother. He could have gone_._ He _should_ have gone_. _Bella had overheard __rumors at school that three different girls waited until the__ last second to accept dates, hoping that he would ask them. But instead of attending high school's top rite of passage, he was sitting on his sister's bed with his mother, both of them trying to make Bella feel better. She wanted to go. She wanted to be in one of those limousines that drove by with laughing teenagers standing up through the sunroof. She wanted to be one of those girls in a frilly dress, dancing with a boy under the scattered, twinkling lights of a disco ball, dancing like in that dream she'd had the other night where she was ice skating and a handsome man had swooped her into a waltz under the stars_

_Renee had told Bella she should go alone. Hold her chin up high and walk in like she owned the place and have the time of her life. But Bella pictured herself seated at a table in the corner, a fake smile plastered to her lips as she waited in vain to be asked to dance. Maybe Renee could have strode into that gymnasium and grabbed a cute guy off the floor and pulled him into a dance with her. Maybe Renee could have been a girl like those in the movies, who would surprise everyone with her daring and beauty and get voted Prom Queen at the end of the evening while the most popular girl glared in impotent rage or was subjected to some comical humiliation, but Bella had never been the star of the movie and she knew it._

_"I know," Jasper said suddenly. "Let's go to Funland!"_

_"Funland?" Bella laughed. "Do they even let people our age in there?"_

_"Sure they do. And we can go jump around in the bouncy castle and dive into the ball pit. What do you say? Come on, I'll win you a teddy bear at skeeball, I promise."_

_And that's just what they had done. Bella had spent her prom night bouncing around in an inflatable castle with her brother and it had been one of those precious moments that you wish you could encapsulate and return to whenever times were hard. For a short, precious few hours, she had been happy.  
><em>

"Bella!"

She opened her eyes. "Jasper," she said.

"Oh, thank God," he said, and sat back. His shoulders sagged in relief. "You passed out."

Bella looked beyond his shoulder and saw the three residents she had carried from their rooms watching with solemn faces. They hadn't scattered back to their rooms, so she supposed that was a positive sign. "Are you okay?" she asked him.

He gave her a small smile. "Yeah, I woke up when my gurney tipped over."

Bella gasped. "Oh, I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, really. I'm fine. The drugs that asshole Black gave to me must have worn off."

She sat up, and her head spun. Nausea surged up into her throat and she flipped over to drag herself a few paces away, retching up what little she'd had for dinner.

Jasper handed her a cloth to wipe her mouth and cupped his palm over her forehead. "Jesus, Bella, you're burning up!"

"I know," she said. "Have you seen Edward?"

"That guy who was with you at the hotel? No, I don't think so."

Where was he? Bella pushed herself to a sitting position and felt the keycard dig into her hip through her pocket. _Aw, jeeze ..._ She hadn't thought of it, but he couldn't get back down the elevator without a keycard. Knowing Edward, he was currently clawing his way through the permafrost to try to get down here. She used her power to lift herself upright, her toes dangling over the floor.

Jasper gaped. "You've gotten a lot stronger," he commented.

"Yeah, thank that asshole Black for that, at least. I can't walk. My leg is broken."

"Let me carry you," Jasper said. "Save your power for when we need it."

"Thank you, Jazzy." She floated over to him and he slid an arm under her knees and one under her shoulders. He winced when her side rubbed up against his wounded chest and she winced too.

"You've lost weight," he noted.

"I've been a little sick lately," she admitted. "But we can talk about it later. We need to get down this hallway to the gray steel door."

The three residents followed them, their faces full of awe, like new religious converts. They walked down the empty, silent hall, darting past open doorways. "What's down that way?" Jasper asked, pointing to a hallway blocked off by metal bars. Bella shook her head. "I don't know. I never went that way while I was here." She felt a sense of unease. What it if was another residential unit and they were leaving people trapped in their rooms?

"Now what?" Jasper stood in front of the steel door. Bella pulled out the keycard and swiped it through, but a red dot appeared.

"Shit," she muttered. "Stand back."

He put her down and she hopped on one leg, balancing herself by gripping the edge of the door frame. The power she'd felt earlier had never fully receded and now when she called it up again to the forefront, it made her entire body hum. She concentrated and pushed hard. The door bowed in its frame with a loud screech of protest.

She pushed harder and the door was ripped from its moorings, clanging across the cement floor. Before she could turn back to Jasper, she was swept up in a pair of arms and her face was covered in kisses. "Thank God, thank God, oh thank God!"

"Edward, I'm sorry, I forgot about the key."

"I couldn't get through the door," he said. "I tried and tried, but it wouldn't budge."

"I know. I'm so sorry."

He squeezed her so hard she squeaked.

"You must be Edward," Jasper drawled.

Edward didn't answer. He thrashed his mighty wings and soared up the cinderblock shaft to the surface. Bella gasped at what she saw around them. It was a war zone. Bodies in uniforms lay on the ground, their blood shockingly red against the snow. Near the open vehicle bays, an overturned truck burned, casting an orange glow over the hellish scene.

"Jesus Christ," Jasper said from behind her. He was at the top of the stairs, his eyes wide as he surveyed the carnage. "What happened here?"

"I got the residents on their way to the ship," Edward said to Bella. "Rose and Emmett had made a pile of coats and boots inside for them to use, but they didn't manage to take many prisoners. Emm-"

A huge explosion came from behind them, the stairwell from which they'd come engulfed by a column of flame. The three residents she had with her screamed and recoiled in fear. Bella shielded them almost instantly, but they still felt the tremendous heat of it. Another explosion rocked the ground beneath them and suddenly gunfire erupted all around them.

Edward laid his body over Bella's, though she tried to push him off so she could see what was going on. She heard a small cry and managed to wrench free in time to see Jane fall to her knees, clutching at her bleeding leg. Rose roared with rage and burst from behind the barricade, rushing toward the line of soldiers who seemed so shocked to see a statuesque blonde woman charging at them that they didn't fire. Rose used her rifle as a club, bashing and hammering at the soldiers. She froze when someone fired, blasting through her chest. She fell forward in a spray of blood.

"Rose!" Bella screamed.

"She's all right!" Edward yelled. "She's not mortal, Bella."

Bella wasn't considering such distinctions at this point. She rose in a sphere of her own power. Lightning crackled over its surface. The soldiers stared up at her, pointing, shouting. Some of them threw down their weapons and scattered, running out onto the dark, snowy plain. One of the men shot at her and Bella's rage slashed at him like a sword, slicing him in half before he could pull the trigger a second time. For an endless moment, he stared at her and then the two halves of him slid apart, dropping to the snow.

She saw a group of soldiers below, taking cover behind the burning truck and the bolt of force she sent at them was so powerful that it obliterated the truck and blasted through the snow beneath them, leaving a black crater in the earth. Bella floated across the battlefield, surrounded by her lightning, a terrifying specter in the night sky that rained death and destruction down on the remnants of the facility's forces. Blood gushed from her nose, but she didn't feel it and there was no headache from this enormous expenditure of power. If she'd been thinking clearly, she might have wondered why.

She finally touched down on the mound behind which Jenks and his men were stationed, trying to balance on her one good leg. Jenks stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

"Bella?" he asked, as if he wasn't quite sure.

She wasn't sure of which of him she should answer. He had split into many Jenkses and her vision was bluring. Hot. She was so _hot. _She pulled off her coat and dropped it onto the snow. "Bella, wait, don't do that," Emmett said quickly.

"Hot," she said. And dizzy. She plopped down onto the snow, seated on her coat. Slowly, she tipped over and sighed in pleasure at the coolness of the snow on her cheek. There were many faces that surrounded her and they were all babbling, but the sounds didn't seem to form words, or at least not ones that she understood.

Jenks knelt in front of her, patting her cheeks. She started to tell him to stop because it was pretty damn annoying, but then she saw the angel behind his shoulder. It was an older man with a gently lined face and gray hair. She wondered if he looked like Jenks's father.

"Thank you, Bella," the angel said with the sweetest smile she'd ever seen. "Thank you."

Bella turned her head to look at Edward, who seemed frantic for some unknown reason. "Edward," she said in soft wonderment. "It was Jenks all along. That's what my mission was."

Edward had tears streaming down his cheeks. "I know, Bella. Stay with me, baby, please. Stay with me."

"Get her to the ship," Jenks said. "Go, Edward, now!"

Bella felt Edward scoop her up into his arms and leap into the air, his wings beating fast to lift them. "I did it," she said dreamily.

"Yes, Bella, you did." She wondered why Edward's voice sounded so strained. Maybe it was because he was flying so hard, his wings beating at the air so fast that they were a blur.

"It doesn't matter," she said, a sudden moment of clarity making her understand his panic. "We'll still be together."

"Bella, hang on, baby, _please_."

She reached up to caress his cheek. The arctic air had frozen the tears where they fell. She bushed one off and it fell into her hand, a shimmering diamond. "Please don't be sad."

"This is not the end," he said fiercely. "You're going to have babies and get old and wrinkly and die with your grandchildren around your bedside."

"I did what I was supposed to do," Bella whispered."That's all that matters."

"And you're going to do _more_," he said. He banked sharply and brought them down on the deck of Jenks's ship. "Collin!" he shouted, and then he screamed it: "_Collin!"_

"Oh, fuck," Collin said. He ran up to them and checked Bella's pulse. "Get her inside."

Edward kicked down the door, too impatient for knobs and laid Bella on the gurney Collin had set up in case of injuries. She cried out as her leg bumped against something and the world went dim.

* * *

><p>For Edward, it was the worst moment of his existence, worse than he ever could have imagined. "Please, please help her," he begged Collin, who inserted an IV into the back of Bella's hand and injected a hypodermic into it.<p>

"I'm trying," Collin said. He met Edward's eyes. "But I think you need to prepare yourself."

"No." Edward refused that possibility. No. The Highest One would not be so cruel. He wanted to pray but all that went through his mind was a litany of _Please, no. Please, no. Please, no._

Collin slipped a clear plastic mask over Bella's mouth and nose. "Her pulse is dropping," he said grimly.

"No," Edward whispered. It seemed to be the only thing he could force out through his tight throat.

"I'll help her."

Edward swiveled his head and saw Esme standing in the doorway. In one hand was clutched the mini-recorder Bella had used to tape Carlisle when he spoke about how much he loved her. Behind her stood Carlisle, looking down at her with tender eyes. Both of them looked so much better since Bella had taken Esme from the facility. Had that only been a few hours ago? It seemed like a lifetime.

Esme came over to Bella's side and laid her hands on Bella's chest.

"What are you doing?" Edward asked.

"Helping," Esme replied, her expression one of intent concentration. Her hands began to emit a soft white glow which grew brighter and brighter until even Edward had to turn away. It was intense, blinding, brighter than the sun itself. Esme groaned and a shudder passed through her. Carlisle, behind her, cried out as well. He spread his wings wide, their shadow protecting those behind them.

The light vanished as though its power had been cut off and Esme slumped over Bella, gasping as though she'd run for miles. Carlisle hovered over her, murmuring words of comfort she could not hear, stroking hands that she could not feel over her hair.

Bella opened her eyes. "Esme?" she said.

Edward seized her in his arms. "Bella?" He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her skin was cool and his heart sang with joy.

"Edward?" Bella looked very confused.

He picked up her hand and removed her bandage. Beneath it, her finger was pink and healthy and when he pushed up the leg of her jeans, he found her leg perfectly healed except for a small scar.

"Thank you ... Oh God, thank you," Edward whispered. "Bless you, Esme."

Esme looked nearly as sick as Bella had, but she gave him a wobbly smile. "You're welcome."

"Esme, look!" Bella said, pointing.

They all turned their heads and gasped. On the wall, the brilliant light had burned a shadow. A shadow of an angel with wings spread wide.

..

* * *

><p>AN: I won't be posting over the next couple of days. Happy holidays, everyone.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fourteen

..

They all stared for a moment at the shadow-angel on the wall, transfixed, then Esme broke the spell when she made a small sound and collapsed to the floor. Carlisle flung himself down beside her with a cry of his own. He tried to lift her head from the floor, but his hands passed through her. His tormented eyes met Edward's as he lifted Esme and laid her down beside Bella. Bella scooted off the opposite side of the bed and swung her legs off. Edward was over beside Bella in a flash after he'd laid down Esme, his eyes anxiously surveying her to make sure she was really all right.

"What's wrong with her?" Bella asked. She stood, cautiously, and found that her legs were strong and stable.

"She healed you," Carlisle said.

"Does that ... hurt her?"

Carlisle put his hand over Esme's, her fingers visible through his semi-transparent form. "When she heals someone, she absorbs the feelings of their pain, their sickness."

"But she doesn't actually _have_ my infection, does she?"

"No, just how you felt from it."

"Pulse rate and respiration normal," Collin announced. "She just fainted. Let's get her down to your room, Carlisle, where she can rest. Bella, don't you move an inch. I want to examine you."

"Collin, I'm _fine_," Bella protested.

"Let's just say I'm from Missouri," Collin tossed over his shoulder.

"The Show-Me state," Rose supplied when the others looked puzzled.

After Collin had pronounced her perfectly healthy, Bella and Edward went to Carlisle's bunk room and tapped lightly on the door. Rose answered it and retreated back to the chair beside the bed. A paperback hung open over the arm of the chair. Carlisle lay beside Esme, his wings wrapped around her sleeping form, his eyes glued to her face. As Bella watched, he gently traced her features with his fingertip, his eyes full of such longing that it was painful.

"Is she okay?" Bella asked. Esme looked feverish, her face waxy and pale with deep, dark circles beneath her eyes.

"She'll feel better in a day or so, the effects will wear off."

Bella felt guilty and it must have shown on her face because Rose shook her head. "It was something she wanted to do for you, Bella. She listened to that recording you made for her over and over."

"So, she knows Carlisle is here?"

Rose sighed. "She still can't hear him or see him, but she knows he's here with her and that he loves her. I think it gave her ... well ... something she needed. She's felt alone and lost for such a long time."

"Can we-" Bella started and was cut off by the sound of a loud, buzzing alarm. The lights flashed in time with it. Esme woke and sat up groggily. "What's that?"

"I don't know," Bella said, but they got their answer when the speaker crackled to life. "Bella! Get your ass up to the bridge. We've got trouble."

Bella and Edward bolted out the door and down the hall to the elevator. "Which level?" Bella asked Edward and he shook his head.

"Hit the button that says 'B'!" Jenks barked. He must have been watching them with one of the cameras that lined the hallways of this ship. "'B' for 'Bridge', get it?"

"How the fuck would I know that?" Bella muttered, and punched the button. "Usually 'B' means 'basement'."

"Oh, for the love of ... Girl, this is a fucking _ship_. It doesn't _have_ a basement!"

"Fuck you, Jenks," Bella said pleasantly. The elevator came to a stop and they exited into a square room at the top of the ship with windows all around. The huge control panel had numerous monitors, buttons and switches and levers. Ben was watching the radar screen. "Look!"

A little green dot was approaching the center ring. "That's us, right?" Bella pointed at the dot in the center.

"Uh huh. And we've got something coming up on us, fast."

"Any idea what is it?"

"From the speed, I'd guess a helicopter, but I can't be sure until we get a visual."

"From where?" Bella blurted. "There weren't any on the island and we're in the middle of the ocean. Helicopters can't fly that far, can they?"

Ben and Jenks exchanged a look.

"I see it!" Edward said, pointing.

All Bella saw was a tiny black dot.

"Can you take it down from here?" Jenks asked.

Bella shook her head. "Not that far away. But we're not sure it's _them_, are we?"

"I don't think they're coming to deliver pizza, Bella." This came from Ben, who had grabbed a pair of binoculars from a drawer and gone to the side window.

"I don't want to kill people if I don' t have to," Bella said, her voice hesitant.

Ben lowered the binoculars. "That's a Bell H1 Cobra. Range of less than 300 miles."

"Ah, fuck," Jenks said and sat down heavily in the captain's chair.

"You want me to call it?" Ben asked him.

"I'll do it," Jenks said. "Just give me-"

"Incoming!" Ben shouted. A puff of smoke and flame had come from the helicopter's stubby wing. Bella instinctively threw up a shield.

Jenks grabbed the microphone on the desk. "Incoming! Brace for impact. All hands prepare to abandon ship."

Bella's shield held when the missile struck, but just barely. She fell back into Edward's arms, and trickle of blood coursed down over her lip. Her head throbbed in time with the alarm's buzzing. "Why are we abandoning ship?" she asked, a little woozily.

"Because that 'copter has a ship not too far behind it and while I can fight off a band of ill-equipped pirates, I can't take on a warship."

But he thought being in lifeboats would be better? She heard the stamping of feet over the sound of the blaring alarms. She turned to look toward the doorway and so she missed the second missile, which slammed into the side of the ship with a terrific explosion. They all staggered and Bella would have fallen if not for Edward's steadying arms. Jenks crawled under the desk and hit a series of buttons on a panel on the underside. He hauled out a small bag and something that looked like a garage door opener.

"Come on." Jenks grabbed Bella by the shoulder and steered her out into the hallway. The crew and the facility residents streamed by, all carrying identical black duffel bags.

Another explosion. Bella turned back toward the bridge. "Jenks, I can't fight it if I can't see it!"

"Forget it. Come on." He pulled her along.

Edward pointedly removed Jenks's hand from Bella and Jenks cleared his throat. "Sorry."

They followed the others down the hallway and there was another explosion that rocked the ships and made the lights flicker. They exited onto the deck and Bella blinked in the bright light of the outdoors. The sound of the helicopter's rotors was loud as it zoomed closer to the ship and Bella heard the _tat-tat-tat_ of machine gun fire. She ducked instinctively, like everyone else, as it passed overhead. She heard screams of terror but not, thank God, pain.

"They're strafing the fuckin' deck," Jenks snarled.

Bella peered over a crate started to focus on the helicopter. Quil, standing behind her, tapped her with his elbow. "I got it," he said, and before she could even reply, the helicopter exploded in a ball of flame, and the wreckage crashed into the sea below. Quil's eyes were soft and dreamy, almost _loving_ as he gazed at the flames.

"Into the boat!" Jenks bellowed. "Come on, everyone, move it!"

The lifeboat was a very strange vessel, painted gray with blotchy blue and white._ Ocean camouflage?_ she wondered. It was large, the size of a yacht, but built in a strange, capsule shape with no decks open to the sea. Bella stepped inside, Edward right behind her. The interior had seating for at least one hundred along its sides and rows in the center. Bella could see straight ahead into the cockpit or bridge, or whatever you were supposed to call it on a ship (she wasn't sure). The glass windshield had a low profile, tilted back like a sports car.

"What is this thing?" Bella asked.

"Custom build," Jenks said. "We can't fight 'em off, so we have to reply on speed and stealth. Take a seat, Bella."

The crew had done an excellent job of collecting all the passengers in a very quick and orderly fashion. Bella saw a sleepy Jane with her head laid in the lap of Lauren. Rose sat beside her, crooning softly. Esme was seated upright, but she looked like hell. Carlisle sat at her feet, staring up at her like a worshiper before an idol.

Emmett loomed over Alice, watching her with the same kind of adoration and though she couldn't hear a word of it, he was telling her about his favorite moments of watching her life. Alice held her knees up to her chest and looked scared to death of Jenks's mean-looking crew, or maybe it was the frightening experience of running through a war zone to board a ship and then have to evacuate after a helicopter shot missiles at it. That was enough to make anyone a little frightened.

Jasper was seated beside Alice, and Bella wished he would talk to Alice in that soft, soothing tone he'd used for Bella whenever she was afraid or stressed, but Jasper seemed a bit shell-shocked himself. He stared into space and his eyes had a hollow look that concerned Bella.

But she couldn't let herself get distracted by things she couldn't help right now. Bella ran a mental inventory of everyone she had known in the facility and the crew, and came up with one person she hadn't seen. "Edward, did we bring Victoria?"

"No," Edward said softly, mindful of Jane nearby. "She was ... taken through the yellow door two days before we arrived."

Bella closed her eyes. She remembered what Rose had said about Victoria going over to the dark side, but if they'd just been a few days earlier, would they have been able to bring her back?

"No, you wouldn't," Edward said. "She was too far gone."

"We can't know that," Bella whispered.

"Bella, her angel had Faded. That means there was no part of her soul that wanted goodness any longer."

Bella shook her head. "Jacob still had his angel. I saw her."

Edward took Bella's hands into his own. "Bella, you saw a few things that night which weren't real. It was your fever, and maybe you had some effects from the amount of power you used."

The rest of the people from the ship piled in and one of the crew shut the door behind them. There was a slight jerk as the pulleys lifted the boat off the rack on which it was stored and lowered it toward the sea.

"I didn't get a nose bleed," Bella said wonderingly, her mind still on the previous night.

"No, you didn't," Edward said grimly. "You were far beyond that. If Esme hadn't-" he bit off the end of his sentence and pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her hair. "I almost lost you," he whispered.

"You can never lose me, Edward. You know that."

He shook his head. "I don't think you understand how important your human life is to me, Bella. It's the only one you'll ever have."

There was a jarring bump as the boat touched down on the water. Jenks came back and opened the door and unhooked the pulleys, leaving them dangling against the side of the ship. He craned his neck out for one last look at the _Volvo_. He gave a small salute. "Goodbye, girl," he said softly. "You were one hell of a ship." He lifted the box that looked like a garage door opener and pushed the button in the center, then tossed it into the sea. He shut the door firmly and strode back to the front.

"Hang on, everyone," he instructed and tossed himself into the captain's seat. "Warp fuckin' speed, Mr. Sulu."

The engines gunned and the boat shot forward so fast that Bella nearly tumbled out of her seat. She landed in Edward's arms, which was a good place to be, she thought, giving him a cuddle. The sound of a terrific explosion behind them made her jerk upright and she craned her neck to look out the side window. The _Volvo_ was in flames and was going down by the nose. As Bella watched, another explosion tore through the ship. It shuddered violently and began to sink even faster. Bella looked away, not wanting to see witness its last moments, to see the ship slip beneath the waves.

She made her way up the aisle with Edward walking along behind her to catch her if she stumbled (which she did. Frequently.) She reached the bridge and held onto the small rail fastened to the wall.

"Why'd you do that?" Bella asked.

"Had a buncha shit I didn't want the _federales_ to see. We always knew we'd have to scuttle her if government agents caught up to us." Jenks was trying to sound indifferent, but Bella knew he'd loved that ship. "Had the whole thing wired within a few days of buying it."

"What's in the bags?"

"What bags?"

"The bags I saw everyone carry aboard." She glanced around but didn't see them. Where had they been stashed?

"Probably something you don't need to worry about," Jenks replied.

"All right." Bella decided to move on. She supposed she'd find out, sooner or later. "Where are we headed?"

"Got a little hide-out in Chile. I thought we'd hole up there for a couple of days until we figure out where to go next."

"No, we have to go back to Ushuaia," Bella said.

"Fuck that! You _trying_ to get us caught?"

"We have to get Dave," Bella insisted.

"She's right. I promised him." Edward spoke up and Jenks met his eyes with difficulty.

"Edward, it's not safe. They're going to find out which port the _Volvo_ departed from and they'll expect us to head back."

"You can anchor off the coast and I'll fly in," Edward said. "But I cannot leave Dave behind. I'll fly from here if I have to."

"All right, goddamit," Jenks muttered, adding in a few complaints about reckless angels and stubborn little wenches. Bella and Edward went back to their seats and curled up together. Bella used one of Edward's wings for a blanket and settled down for a nap. It seemed like only seconds after she laid down that she was back on the island.

_How many had she killed? Bella was not sure. She drifted above the battlefield, crushing, striking, rending, and then she was back in the hall where she had crushed the soldiers to oblivion, leaving nothing more than a red smear on the ground that her brother's gurney rolled over easily. She heard the awful cry if Jacob's angel after she crushed his heart with her mental fist._

_Bella._

Bella.

"Bella," Edward said. He shook her gently.

Bella blinked at him, swamped with the momentary confusion of waking suddenly in a strange place. Edward bent down and kissed her softly. "You were having a bad dream," he told her.

"Bad _memories,_" she corrected. She let out a shaking breath. "Edward, I killed so many people last night."

"You did what you had to do," Edward said. He stroked her hair. "They would have killed you, had you let them."

"That's not it," Bella said. She crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck as he enveloped her in his wings. "What bothers me is that I _don't_ feel remorseful. I felt so bad after I killed Tyler, but now, I don't feel anything at all after killing dozens of people. I'm scared, Edward. Is there something ... _wrong_ with me? Am I going bad?"

"I don't think so," Edward told her. "First of all, I think you're still in shock and that you haven't processed all of your memories and emotions from last night. Secondly, you didn't do anything _wrong_."

"How can you say that? God's rule is not to hurt people and I hurt a _lot_ of people."

Edward shook his head. "God is not inflexible or incapable of understanding context and circumstances. If a woman kills a man who's trying to hurt a child, do you think God would condemn her for that?"

"Well, no, I wouldn't think so."

"You destroyed a facility dedicated to hurting children," Edward said. "Not just little Jane over there, but all of you, _someone's_ children, no matter that you're adults. You destroyed a man who would try to turn a girl like Jane into a weapon, try to twist her by giving her to a remorseless and cold guardian. And Esme ... do you know how they tested her power? They purposefully injured people knowing that she'd be unable to resist helping them even if it caused her pain. Those are the people you killed last night, Bella."

"Not the soldiers. They were just doing their jobs."

"Like the guards at Auschwitz? Anyone who would defend such a place has surrendered their status as an innocent bystander. Those soldiers who fired shots at that truck knowing that it caused you pain ..." His jaw set in angry lines.

"After Rose was shot, I sort of lost my head," Bella confessed.

Edward looked at her strangely. "Bella, that didn't happen. Rose wasn't shot."

"I saw it." Jesus Christ. How could something so vivid be a hallucination? "It happened right after Jane was injured. She jumped into that group of soldiers and fought them and one of them shot her through the chest. I saw the blood ..."

Edward shook his head. "The soldiers couldn't see her, Bella. I saw that you were upset by the way she jumped into the fray and that's why I told you not to worry, that she wasn't mortal and they couldn't hurt her. Rose doesn't have a body. She doesn't bleed. A bullet would pass right through her harmlessly."

Bella felt cold. "I was really hallucinating, then? That bad?"

"Maybe you saw what you needed to see," Edward said softly.

"Did you see Jenks's angel?"

Edward shook his head. "I know _you_ saw it; I saw it in your mind. Then you told me that Jenks had been your mission all along, and maybe you were right. I don't know. I don't know why you would have seen his angel here on earth. Maybe the Highest One sent you a vision to let you know that you had completed your task, to give you peace as you lay dying."

Bella shivered to think how close she had come. "Did Esme interfere with fate? Was I supposed to die?"

Edward shook his head. "If it was supposed to happen, it _would_ have happened. She would have been too late, or you would have been too far gone for her to help. I think ... I think it was a Crossroads."

"What's that?"

"A Crossroads is a place where fate has divergent paths. Esme could have chosen not to bear your pain and sickness and you would have died. Or, she had the choice to save you."

"Like that movie a few years ago where it shows what would have happened if a woman would have missed a train, and what happened if she made it on time."

"Something like that."

She shook her head. "That seems like a really big difference in fate. I mean, I don't want to sound egotistical or anything, but I have the ability to change many things in the future. Save lives or end them."

"That's free will. You humans are not given exact blueprints for how your lives must be. There are choices you have, different paths you can take. Sometimes, there are things which _have_ to happen, and for those, we are given the nudges we need to go in the proper direction. The morning you saved that woman from the logging truck ... do you remember why you were walking?"

"I couldn't sleep. I woke before my alarm went off and decided to go on my morning walk early."

"And if you'd never rescued that woman, you wouldn't have been caught by Project Theta."

"And then I never would have met you," Bella added.

"If you hadn't wanted to go back to get the others, we never would have met Jenks."

"And without my finger being infected, I never would have gone down to see Collin and Jenks wouldn't have seen your flaming sword and realized what you are."

"Which is why he chose not to go to southeast Asia," Edward finished.

"What do you think would have happened down there?" Bella asked.

"I don't know. Maybe he would have sold weapons to a group who would have tried to overthrow their government, or maybe equipped a terrorist cell. Or maybe the guy who's going to cure cancer would have died from some of the drugs Jenks sold him. I don't know. We'll probably never know. But if you're right, that our mission was to stop him, everything seems to have led us to that path."

"Where do we go from here?" she asked, laying her head back down on his chest.

"I don't know," Edward said. "But as long as we're together, I don't mind where we go."

* * *

><p>Bella slept heavily, more exhausted than she'd realized. She didn't even notice when Edward gently detangled himself from her and left. She woke to someone licking her nose and recoiled with a grimace. She opened her eyes and saw a black furry face. "Dave!" she cried. She sat up and he jumped into her arms, licking every inch of skin he could reach, wagging his tail so hard that his whole backside swayed.<p>

"He says you smell better," Edward said with a smile.

"Well, he doesn't. He smells like he slept inside a rotting fish." Bella laughed as the puppy rolled over onto his back, and his tongue lolled as he begged for a belly rub. Dog lovers from all over the boat, including some of the evil-looking crew members, came over to share in the petting. There is no man on earth who can look like a mean badass while playing with a puppy. It made Alice considerably less nervous around them. Bella was relieved when Jasper joined in, too, seeming to shake himself free from a little of the trauma shock.

"I spotted him at the docks as I flew over," Edward said.

"What was he doing down there?"

"He says some baddogs- bad people, took over the apartment and he had to flee. He doesn't keep track of time well, so it could have been two or three days after we left. He's not sure. He followed our scent to the docks and waited there."

"Oh, poor boy. You must be so hungry."

"The fisherman at the docks took a liking to him and kept him pretty well-fed with scraps from their lunches."

Jenks came back to see what all the fuss was about. "I want it to be known I had no idea that Dave was a dog when I said we'd go back for him," he said, his tone wry.

"He's worth it," Edward said.

Jenks saw how the puppy was filling the silent cabin with laughter, breaking through the layers of protective numbness with which the traumatized facility residents had wrapped themselves and he gave a little smile. "I suppose he was."`


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

..

Edward woke Bella when they docked. She was sitting on his lap, her head pillowed on his shoulder, one wing pulled across her as a blanket. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. "Where are we?" she asked.

"Chile," Jenks answered, as he made his way down the aisle to the door. He opened it and she heard a few thumps and a curse as he anchored the boat to the dock. Hot, humid air swirled through the cabin and people stripped off the coats they'd been wearing or using as blankets during the trip. Bella tied her parka around her waist. "All right. We're tied up. Everybody off."

"Do we have to go through customs?" Bella asked woozily.

Jenks chuckled. "She's kinda cute when she's all sleepy and stupid," he told Edward.

Dave bounded up the aisle and stood against Jenks's legs. He swatted his knee with a paw when Jenks didn't look down. "Bella, your mutt wants something."

"Probably to go outside," Bella said. "It's been a long trip."

Jenks eyed the puppy dubiously. "What does he want _me_ to do about it?"

"Now who's being stupid? Lift him off the boat onto the dock, Jenks. Don't worry. Your crabby badass index won't sink if you're seen touching a puppy once."

"It can't go any lower than it already is," Forks said cheerfully. He was the one who picked up Dave and gave his ears a quick rub before he deposited the puppy on the dock and hopped up after him.

"Don't go far!" Edward called after Dave.

Jenks stood on the boat and helped the passengers step up onto the dock. The men merely got a steadying hand to grasp. They picked up the women, whether they wanted or needed the assistance. Jenks simply stood back when Bella reached the front of the line, holding up his hands like a bank robbery victim. He knew that Edward didn't like anyone else touching his human. Edward lifted Bella onto the dock and hopped up after her. Bella stumbled when she tried to take a step. The dock seemed to be rocking back and forth. Edward scooped her up into his arms, which didn't help her equilibrium, but saved her from the possibility of scraped knees. "You'll get your land legs back in a bit," Edward promised. He seemed to be the only one, besides Jenks's crew, that wasn't effected.

Jenks's men unloaded the mysterious black duffel bags and passed them out to the passengers to carry. The one Forks gave to Edward was open an inch or so at the top and so Bella peeked inside. She couldn't help but gasp. The bag was full of money, American hundred dollar bills, crisp and new, wrapped in paper bands, bundled in blocks covered in plastic cling wrap. She looked up and saw Jenks watching her with one brow arched. Bella gulped and said nothing.

Collin opened a panel in the floor of the boat and passed out rifles to the crew. He offered one to Bella but she shook her head. They followed the crew down the dock onto the path that led into the jungle. Dave popped out of the underbrush, barking in excitement as he ran back over to Edward. "He found the house," Edward told Jenks. "And it smells like no one has been there in a very long time."

Jenks growled. "Goddam jungle guerrillas. Can't trust 'em. They were supposed to have someone go in and check on the place once a week. Place probably looks like a fuckin' Mayan ruin by now."

They brushed by massive plants and Collin, at the head of the group, had to hack at vines that had grown across the path with the machete he carried. Bella looked around in wonderment. She had never imagined that she would ever get a chance to see the rainforest. She was awed by the size of the plants, the massive primordial trees that soared overhead and the screeching calls of unidentified animals that echoed through the trees.

It was stiflingly hot, and as humid as a small bathroom after a steamy shower. Bella was sweating within minutes after they'd stepped off the boat. Edward flapped his wings to fan her, but it only pushed around the sticky air and didn't help to cool her down. Edward looked as cool as a cucumber. Angels, apparently, didn't sweat. He smiled sympathetically at her. "We can stand greater temperature extremes," he explained.

They came to a small clearing and saw a house in the center of it, a huge, sprawling modern structure, all glass and sharp angles, built up off the ground on cement pillars. Jenks flipped open a small metal box mounted on one of the pillars and punched in a code. There was a mechanical whirring sound and a staircase lowered. "_Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly."_ Jenks recited and gestured to the staircase. The exhausted, overheated group trudged up it one by one. Jenks followed them inside and hit a button on a panel on the wall next to the stairs, which retracted the staircase behind them into the floor.

"Wow, Jenks, this place is amazing," Bella said. It was like something that you'd see in _Architectural Digest_. The walls were glass. The first floor was a single, massive room that flowed from the kitchen to the dining room and then into a massive living area. In the center, there was a small square area of solid walls in which a bathroom was located. The furniture was modern, low and sleek with glass and metal tables. A huge flatscreen television hung on the wall in the center of the room; the opposite side of the square boasted a fireplace, which made Bella shake her head. Who needed a fireplace in the jungle?

"I'll get the gennie turned on," Jenks said. "We'll have air conditioning soon."

"How do you run a generator out here?" Bella asked. "You can't be hauling in gasoline to run it."

"Natural gas pipeline not too far from here," Jenks said. "It was just a matter of running a line to it."

Likely one which the energy company was unaware of, Bella imagined.

A shiny, black grand piano on the far side of the room drew Edward's attention. He stood Bella on her feet and wandered over to it. He plunked a key and winced at the off-key tone.

"Do you play?" Bella asked him.

Edward nodded. "Comes standard with the package. All angels are musically gifted."

"I guess that's where the harp thing came from," Forks said.

Edward chuckled. "Yes, something like that."

Dave ran through the house, sliding around on the white tile floor. Jenks put out a foot to catch him before he could crash into the coffee table. "Listen, mutt, if you piss on my floor or chew on my furniture, I'm gonna toss you out to feed the pythons. Got it?"

Edward got Dave's attention, though Bella doubted he was translating the message exactly as spoken. Dave sat down and listened, his head tilted to one side. "He promises he won't, if you'll put out a box with shredded newspaper. That's what we did in the apartment back home because his little bladder sometimes couldn't wait for us."

Jenks grimaced. "That's gross."

"Better than puddles on the floor," Edward commented.

"I guess. Fine. Put a box out for him, but please, change the goddam thing frequently before it starts stinking up the place, okay?" Jenks raised his voice to be heard over the chatter of the milling people in the room. "_Achtung_, fuckers!"

Everyone quieted and looked at him expectantly. "There aren't enough bedrooms for everyone to have their own, so we're going to have to double-bunk. Couples get their own rooms, and me, I'm pullin' fuckin' rank, so I get my own, too. Come on. Follow me."

They followed Jenks upstairs. He closed one of the bedroom doors. "Mine," he said simply. "And Bella and Edward get this one." He closed another door and then gestured grandly to the rest of the open doors. "Fight it out amongst yourselves, but don't get blood on my floors."

"Jenks," Bella said reprovingly. She stepped forward and started the assigning rooms to the residents. There were ten more bedrooms, plenty of space for everyone, and on the third floor, there were small rooms for live-in staff, perfect for Rose and Emmett, she thought, but they refused to be parted from their humans, so Bella put Jane, Alice and Esme upstairs. All three of them were small people, she reasoned, and they would fit in the queen-sized bed with room to spare. Fortunately, Jane didn't seem hostile to Alice any longer, possibly because her little world had been disrupted again and she needed the comfort of familiar faces.

Esme still had the recorder clutched in her hand. Bella and Edward went upstairs with them and sat on the bed they would share. It was explosively hot up here, but cool air was blowing in through the vents and it would be comfortable soon. "You look like you feel better, Esme," Bella said.

"I do, thank you," Esme said.

"I never got to thank you for what you did for me," Bella told her. "You saved my life. A simple 'thank you' doesn't seem like enough."

Esme held up the recorder. "_This_. This is more than enough. It's so hard to believe that I have my own angel and that he's here with me."

Bella glanced at Edward. She wasn't sure how long that situation would last because Carlisle seemed to be Fading again. He clung to Esme like a shadow, his eyes always glued to her face. He tried to touch her frequently, but his hands passed through her like smoke through a screen and every time, he looked more despondent. Rose had been right, Bella thought. It was like seating a starving man in front of a feast he could not eat.

Rose and Emmett seemed a little stronger, but they had fallen into the same behavior as Carlisle, gazing helplessly at their humans, and Bella couldn't stand to look at their eyes any longer. Their intense longing and sadness was difficult to see. Now that they were in proximity to their humans, they had lost the ability they had to appear solid, or maybe it was simply their fading strength. Bella did not know. The crew assumed they had "left" after the battle was over, or had perhaps been casualties of it. Either way, they didn't mention Rose or Emmett any more.

"I've listened to it so many times that I have it memorized," Esme continued. "I just wish I had the power to see him like you do. Where is he now?"

"Standing behind you," Bella said. Her throat was tight. "He has his hands on your shoulders."

Esme turned around and extended her hand, feeling the air. Carlisle moaned as her hand passed through his chest. He wrapped his wings around her, but Esme stepped back and passed through them, even as Carlisle tried to draw her back with an inarticulate groan.

"I saw his shadow," Esme mused. "That will have to be enough."

Bella couldn't help the surge of anger as Carlisle wrapped himself around his human again, unseen, unheard, unfelt. _Dear God, it's me Bella. I want you to know I think you're a cruel bastard. That's all._

"Bella, no," Edward murmured. "It's not the fault of the Highest One that they chose this path."

"He's the one who designed the path, isn't he?" Bella shot back.

"I wanna go play with Dave," Jane said, interrupting Bella's angry thoughts. "Is that okay, Bella?"

"Sure," Bella said and Jane scampered off, looking like the child she was for the first time since Bella had met her. Rose drifted behind. _Watch them_, she thought at Edward. Jane still had that cruel, angry streak in her and while Bella didn't think that Jane would hurt Dave, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Edward kissed her and left the room to follow Jane down the stairs.

"He's so _beautiful_," Esme breathed.

"Yes," Bella said, simply. "He is." She didn't know what face Edward wore for these people, but in the end, it didn't matter. His pure heart shone through and made him beautiful no matter what appearance he donned.

Alice sat down beside Bella on the bed. "Can you record my angel for me?" she asked eagerly.

"I can try, but I'm not sure it will work again, now that Heaven knows about the loophole."

"Oh," Alice seemed disappointed. Emmett tried to cuddle her, but his arms held nothing but air. "What does he look like?"

"He's big. Tall and broad shouldered with dark hair and eyes. His hair is a little curly."

Alice sighed. "Like I always imagined my big brother would look like," she said. "I was an only child, and I was always the smallest kid in my grade. The other kids picked on me. I always fantasized about having big brother, who would be large and intimidating to the others, but sweet and gentle with me." She let out a soft laugh. "That's something that sucked about being a pre-cog. I'd see what the kids were going to do to me that day and then I'd have to go to school and live through it."

"Why didn't you tell your mother or your teachers that you were being picked on?" Esme asked.

Bella and Alice exchanged a look. Esme must have been one of the kids accepted into the ranks of her peers, who had never seen what it was like for the outcasts.

"Tattling usually makes it worse," Alice told her. "As soon as I decided to tell someone, I'd see what the outcome would be and it was never an improvement to my situation."

"Oh, you poor girl," Esme said and pulled Alice into her arms. Emmett and Carlisle sighed, both of them happy to see Esme deliver the comfort they could not, but envious as well.

"Bella?" Amanda stood in the doorway. "Jenks would like to talk to you downstairs."

Bella had thought Amanda meant the living room, but she led Bella to Jenks's bedroom. The room was huge and luxurious, beautifully decorated, with it own small conversation area, consisting of a small sofa and two wing chairs with a coffee table in the center. Jenks was perched in the center of the sofa and Collin sat on his right and another of the crew, Phoenix, a man Bella didn't know well, sat on his left. Bella chose one of the chairs and settled into it. Forks stood behind the sofa, leaning over it with his arms braced on the back.

"Would you sit the fuck down?" Jenks said to him. "You make me nervous with that 'looming' shit."

Forks shrugged and took the empty chair, slumping down into it so low that it looked like he'd melted.

"All right. I assume Edward is listening in. He told me about that mind-meld shit you two have got going on. You tell me if he's got anything to add to this conversation."

Bella shook her head. "Sorry, it only works one-way. I can't hear him."

"I suppose he can tell me later." Jenks shrugged. "Anyway, we need to think about what our next step will be. This place is pretty well hidden, and there were only a couple people who know I own it, so we're about as safe as we can be for the time being. However, I don't think we should settle in here for too long, and I imagine some of your people want to get home to their families."

"It's too dangerous," Bella protested. "Their families are almost certainly being watched. I haven't seen the news since we escaped, but I'd imagine we're now known as a terrorist cell and they'll be looking for all of us."

Jenks spoke in a mild tone: "Bella, are you going to force them to stay with us? I thought you rescued them to give them their freedom, not to hold them yourself."

"I did," Bella replied. "But I want them to be safe. I've had years of practice being on the run from _'them_' and I still got caught. Some of these people wouldn't know what they were doing."

"It gives us a better chance if '_they_' are busy trying to track down a dozen groups as opposed to one large group," Forks noted.

Bella was aghast. "Are you suggesting we should send some of our people out like sacrificial lambs to keep the wolves busy while the rest of us run for it?"

"No, I'm telling you that moving a large group like this is very difficult, especially while trying to be stealthy about it. We increase our chances if we split up. Secondly, we have no idea if we can trust everyone in the group."

"I've got a phone and GPS scrambler on this place," Jenks said, "but it's not a solid guarantee that no one will be able to contact someone on the outside and tell them where we are."

"Here's what I suggest," Phoenix said. His voice made Bella jump because it was low and gravelly, like stone grating on sandpaper. "We make our way to North America and drop the people there, with some cash in hand. We can't send 'em out in a foreign country without passports or even knowing the language."

Jenks scratched his chin. "Where do we drop 'em? California?"

"I say we take the PC to the east coast."

"PC?" Bella repeated.

"Panama Canal."

"Fuck that," Forks said. "We don't have any papers, remember? And they'll be looking for us."

"I can get us through," Phoenix said. "_El Presidente_ owes me a favor."

"Your bribe better be bigger than what the Theta Project is offering," Jenks warned.

Forks spoke up, "I think we should drop 'em on both coasts. Better chances if they don't all spread out from one location."

"I don't know if we have that kind of time," Jenks replied. "They're going to throw every goddam resource they've got at this. From what Bella here has told me, the government is scared shitless that these people are going to end up in the hands of another nation, one that might use them as weapons. To them, it's like having two dozen nukes go missing. I don't know if they were telling her the truth about other governments trying to kidnap these people, but I'm going to work off the assumption that the whole fuckin' world is looking for us."

"Ditch 'em, Jenks," Collin said. He did not look in Bella's direction as he said this. "It's too fuckin' risky. Why are we doing this, anyway? There's no money in it and there's probably a ninety percent chance we're going to end up getting our fuckin' heads blown off. And for _what_?"

"We're doing it because it's _right_," Jenks said.

Collin shook his head. "You've lost it, man. In case you've forgotten, you've got a crew that works for you for _money_. Money we make doing some highly illegal and highly profitable shit. We are not the cocksucking Red Cross."

"You want out, fine. Take your share of the cash and go." Jenks jerked his head toward the door. "Same goes for any of my guys. There's enough for everyone to have a nice, comfortable retirement. No one is fuckin' forcing you. But as for the criminal shit, I'm done."

"You got religion now?" Collin spat.

"You saw the same thing I saw." Jenks met his eyes levelly.

Collin shook his head. "I was never an atheist, Jenks. I knew all along what I was choosing."

"There's still time for you to change."

"You're assuming I want to," Collin replied.

Silence greeted that statement.

"Your angel is dying," Bella said. "Every day slipping more and more into despair as you ignore the whispers in your heart. Once your angel is gone, there's no hope for you, Collin. Because your angel represents everything that's good about you, the better part of your nature."

Collin stared at Bella for a long moment and she shivered at his cold and empty eyes. Then, he rose and walked out of the room without another world.

"Aw, Christ," Jenks said. He rubbed his face with one hand and pushed the hair back from his forehead. "Meeting fuckin' adjourned."

* * *

><p>Bella helped Lauren cook that night. Jenks had a well-stocked deep freezer which ran off natural gas and had never shut off, unlike the other appliances that ran off the generator, and plenty of canned goods in his pantry. The kitchen itself was a chef's delight with a huge gas range, dark marble counter tops and just about every appliance and kitchen gadget under the sun, most of them still new with the tags or stickers still on them.<p>

They put together several large pans of lasagne and the talented Lauren even made garlic bread from scratch which deeply impressed cooking-impaired Bella. They chatted as they cooked and Bella found that she really liked Lauren. It was hard to believe such a pleasant-natured woman was one of Jenks's badasses.

"How did you join up with Jenks?" she finally summoned the courage to ask.

Lauren froze for a moment and then went back to kneading the dough. "He found me," she said. "I was ... Well, I was a hooker with a drug problem, if you want to know the truth. I worked in a club in Krung Threp ... Bangkok, in English. I used to have this boyfriend, he was a gambler and not a very good one. We traveled all over the world searching for his 'lucky break', though every time he found one, he'd gamble that away too. Anyway, one night he was out of chips and the only thing he had left was me. He bet me on a 'sure hand ' and lost."

"You can't gamble away a _person_," Bella blurted.

"In some places, in some circles, yes, you can. The guy he lost me to didn't care whether I was willing or not and when he was done with me, he sold me to the underground club where Jenks found me. I really liked Jenks. He used to buy time with me so that we could just sit and have a drink and talk.

"Then, one night, they told me to grab my stuff because they were moving me to another location. Jenks had tried to buy me, but the club owner didn't want to sell his main attraction; blue-eyed blondes make a lot of money in a place where most people have dark hair. They knew that Jenks wouldn't take no for an answer, 'cause that's just the kind of guy he is, you know? They didn't move fast enough. Jenks and his crew raided the place, stole me and all of the money in the casino and let the other girls go, too. He tried to shrug it off as just something his crew did to make money, but I know he did it to get me out of there. And I'd do anything for him."

"I'm so glad he got you out of that terrible place."

Lauren smiled slightly. "Did you know that Krung Threp means '_City of Angels_'? Jenks was my angel. He helped me kick my habit and start recovering my personality from beneath the layers of ice I'd wrapped myself in as protection. I love him, Bella. I love him with all of my heart and to this day he's never even laid a finger on me. Says he doesn't want me to feel used like I was used by all of those other men."

Bella impulsively gave Lauren a hug. Lauren stiffened for a moment but returned it. "Maybe now that he's ... on the right path ..."

Lauren smiled. "Yeah, maybe."

By the time they had slid the numerous pans of lasagne out of the oven, the air conditioner had finally cooled the house down to a comfortable temperature and everyone spread out around the first floor with their plates balanced on their laps because there certainly wasn't room enough at the table for all of them.

Dave bounded around the room, delighted with all of his new people. Almost all of them were nice humans who would give him a pat or an ear scratch (and a few of them even sneaked him a bite of their garlic bread) but there were a couple he avoided, especially the dark man. Dave called him that because of the shadow which seemed to surround him, a shadow that Dave could neither see nor smell, but that he knew was there none the less.

Dave waited until the winged man had finished eating. Another female had cooked Dave some dinner, rice boiled in chicken broth, which Dave had thought was very tasty, almost as good as a can of wetfood. His belly was pleasantly bulging and what Dave really wanted to do was curl up and take a nap, but he needed to tell his human about the dark man.

He hopped up onto the winged man's lap and stood with his front legs braced against the winged man's chest. He gave him a respectful lick on the chin, as was proper to do when greeting an alpha. _The dark man scares me_, he told the winged man, giving him an image of the human in question.

_Don't be afraid,_ the winged man replied. _He's lost right now. Lost and alone. We're trying to help him find his way back._

Dave considered this. He knew what it was like to be alone and sad. The hurt was almost enough to make him want to bite people. _Maybe he needs petted_, Dave suggested. _The female on the fluffy-sit seems to want to pet him.  
><em>

_I hadn't noticed_. The winged man eyed the woman, whose gaze was glued to the dark man. The winged man motioned to his female and they vocalized softly. Confident the winged man would fix it, Dave trotted off in search of a soft place to sleep.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

..

Bella and Edward started to head upstairs after dinner only to freeze on the stairs at the sound of helicopter blades. Jenks dashed over to one of the windows and his shoulders sagged in relief.

"It's cool!" he called to the anxious people. "I know these guys."

The helicopter landed in the small meadow and three men emerged. They had rifles slung over their shoulders, but otherwise looked like they were on their way to chair a stockholder's meeting. Bella was no expert in fashion, but if those beautifully cut and fitted suits weren't designer, she'd eat her jeans.

"Those are your 'jungle guerrillas'?" Bella asked.

Jenks chuckled nervously. "Just a little nickname I have for them." He cleared his throat. "One that might be best left unmentioned when they're actually around."

"Yeah, got it," Bella said.

Jenks punched in a code and the staircase descended for the men who climbed it into the living room. The man who took the lead was probably the best looking non-angel man Bella had ever seen. His hair was ink black, as shiny as obsidian, and his skin had a golden-bronze tone. His eyes were the darkest she had ever seen, a true black, not just dark brown, but actually _black,_ with no visible distinction between his iris and pupil. His perfectly symmetrical face was chiseled, with high cheekbones and a well-defined jaw that could easily have graced the cover of any fashion magazine.

She could only stare, her mouth slightly agape, and he seemed used to that sort of reaction. Behind her, Edward growled a little. The two men who followed him were equally well-dressed, but ordinary enough in appearance to blend into any crowd. They stood back from the group, their eyes flicking over each face, as if looking for trouble.

"Bella, this is Amun," Jenks said. He did not introduce the other two men, so Bella assumed they must be some kind of bodyguards.

Amun took her hand and instead of shaking it, bowed over it and pressed a soft kiss to the back of it. "Your name is very apt," he purred, and his accent spoke of exotic origins.

Edward growled again and put his hands on Bella's shoulders. Amun chuckled. "And who is this?"

"That's Edward," Jenks said. "Don't fuck with him. Really."

Amun arched a brow. He surveyed the silent group for a moment before turning back to Jenks. "Just when I think I have you figured out, my friend, you go and surprise me again. What in the world are you up to now?"

Jenks shrugged. "What have you heard?"

"Oh, things like destroying a government research station, terrorism and murder. Not far from the usual, but in this case, I can't determine your profit motive and that is what piqued my interest."

Jenks gave Bella a small smile. "We're on a mission from God," he said, and lit a cigarette. He offered the pack to everyone in his radius, but everyone declined.

"From what I've seen, God does not pay his employees very well," Amun said.

Jenks shrugged. "I'm not broke. How much money does one guy need, anyway?"

"Your friends in Asia are not pleased that you did not arrive as agreed."

"My boat developed a small leak," Jenks said. "As soon as I can haul it up from the bottom of the Pacific, I'll give them a call."

"What a shame."

"Yeah, I was kinda fond of that old rust bucket. But I'm sure you're not here to offer your condolences on the loss of my ship."

"No, I am not." Amun glanced around at the audience, watching this exchange as if it were an interesting television show. "May we speak in your office?"

Bella didn't even know Jenks_ had_ an office.

"Yeah, come on." They started up the stairs after him. Amun paused and looked pointedly back at Bella and Edward.

"They come too," Jenks said. "They're sort of ... co-leaders in this operation."

Amun said nothing. He and his bodyguards followed Jenks up the stairs, Bella and Edward trailing. At the top of the stairs, Jenks tapped the wall with the side of his fist and a hidden panel appeared. He punched in a series of numbers and the wall slid open.

"Wow!" Bella said, impressed. She didn't think things like that existed outside of movies.

Jenks smirked, and swooped his hands toward the new doorway. "Ladies first."

If Bella had been asked to imagine the kind of office Jenks had, she would have started with a gray metal desk, pornographic photos tacked to nicotine-stained walls and piles of disordered papers everywhere. Instead, Jenks had an immaculate glass desk in front of a large window and framed Dürer etchings on the paneled walls. He gestured Bella and Amun to take seats in the large black leather chairs in front of his desk, odd looking things that they were- more modern art than a chair- "S" shaped with no arms, but surprisingly comfortable.

"I've got a job for you," Amun said.

Jenks seated himself in his own chair and plucked a pen out of the black lacquered tray behind the blotter. He twirled it in his fingers like a baton. "Probably not interested," he said.

"A quarter of a million."

Jenks shrugged.

"Half."

Jenks tapped the pen against his lower lip. "What is it?"

"There's a certain person-."

"Not interested," Jenks said with a shake of his head.

"Oh, I think you will be. This person happens to be the head of the research facility you destroyed."

Jenks dropped his pen and fumbled to pick it up. "Who?"

"His name is Aro Volturi. He still goes by 'general', though he is technically retired. Off record, he is head of the Theta Project. Half a million once I know the job is done. He wears a signet ring. Bring it to me."

"Why?" Bella asked. "Why do you want him dead?"

Amun turned to face her, his dark eyes burning. "Did you know a woman named Victoria?"

"Red hair?" Bella asked.

Amun nodded. "She was ... She was mine. Aro was the one who ordered her taken and he was the one who ordered her death."

"How do you know this?" Jenks asked.

Amun waved a hand. "It doesn't matter." He turned to Bella again. "You have already killed the one who pulled the trigger and for that, you will always have my gratitude. I owe you a favor."

Bella glanced at Jenks and he widened his eyes at her.

"Thank you," Bella said hastily. She had no idea what Amun owing her a favor meant, but Jenks seemed to think it was something impressive.

Amun reached inside his suit and pulled an envelope from the breast pocket. "These are the details you will need. Can I count on you?"

"Aw, fuck," Jenks rubbed a hand over his face.

"If he won't do it, I will," Bella said.

Amun's dark eyes returned to lock with hers. He studied her for a moment and nodded. "So be it."

He rose and extended a hand to Jenks, who shook it, his expression a bit dazed. He kissed Bella's hand again and then departed, his bodyguards following silently. In a moment, Bella heard the rotors of the helicopter again.

"You understand that you just accepted a contract, right?" Jenks said to Bella. "What the fuck, girl, you're no hitman, or hitwoman, whatever you want to call it."

"I'm going to end the Theta project," Bella said. "Once and for all. I'm not going to live the rest of my life on the run, and there's a room full of people downstairs who shouldn't have to live like that, either. We're going to hunt down Aro and find out where the Theta Project records are stored. Once they've been destroyed, most of the people should be able to go back to their normal lives."

"It won't stop with Aro," Jenks said. "He's not the top of the pile. More like middle management."

"Then we'll just have to find the people who are in charge," Bella replied.

"Bella, that's a fuckload of sin you're planning to commit."

Bella nodded. "I know. But I see it along the lines of what Carlisle and Rose and Emmett did. If, by my sacrifice, all those people down there can have normal lives again, and there will never be children stolen away from their families again, it will be worth it."

Jenks stood. "All right, kiddo. I'm with you. Now, we just gotta see how many of the crew are onboard with it."

* * *

><p>Bella didn't attend the crew meeting. She felt it should be a private discussion between them. It felt almost like a man asking for a divorce from his wife of many years because he'd had a mid-life epiphany.<p>

Bella sighed. What she longed for most was to go upstairs into their room and lay down with Edward and have him wrap his wings around her, blot out the world with soft whiteness. But she couldn't do that. The facility residents (whom the crew referred to politely as "the Gifted") needed her. They seemed to look to Bella and Edward as leaders, which scared the hell out of her. Bella had never been the leader of anything and she had no idea what to do.

She waded through the crowd, smiling at everyone, pausing to chat with this person or that, but her goal was to find her brother. Jasper had been praised for his leadership in school. He'd been student council president his senior year and vice president of the debate club. If anyone could help her, he could.

"Hey," she said, sitting down beside him on the sofa. Edward stood behind her, one of his hands resting lightly on her shoulder. Bella covered his hand with her own and smiled up at him.

"Hey," Jasper replied. He tore his eyes away from what he was watching with an effort. Bella followed his gaze and saw that Jasper had been watching Alice, who was playing Scrabble with Jane as they ate.

"Alice, huh?" Bella asked. She recognized that look on his face. Jasper had a habit of getting crushes on women and admiring them from afar rather than making his interest known and risking rejection.

Jasper squirmed a little under her gaze and a blush appeared along the top of his cheekbones. He had always hated that be blushed as easily as Bella did. "She's not interested."

"How do you know? Did you ask?"

Jasper shrugged, trying to appear indifferent. "She's focused on that Collin guy."

"Edward noticed that last night," Bella noted. "He thinks that Alice would be good for Collin. Help ... uh .. steer him in the right direction."

"Maybe you should talk to her," Jasper said. "And I'm not just saying that because I ... well, you know ... I'm saying it because I don't think he's a very nice person and she could get hurt."

Bella shook her head. "I don't think he would hurt a woman. Jenks wouldn't have that kind of guy on his crew."

"No, I don't mean _that_ way. I mean that if she gets involved emotionally, he could break her heart. I don't think he's really capable of returning her feelings." Jasper had gone back to gazing at her. "You know how getting hurt can change people. She's so sweet and kind. Look at her over there with Jane. Jane was nothing but nasty to her in the facility and now Alice is embracing her like a sister. He could crush that sweetness out of her." He drew in a shuddering breath. "I've seen it happen before. Those kind of guys, they're like vampires who suck the joy and heart right out of the women who love them."

"I know what a good heart she has, Jasper. She was always kind to me, too."

"She thinks you're still angry at her."

Bella was startled by that. "Why?"

"Because she thinks she betrayed you by giving in to the torture. That prick, Jacob Black, he was a mind reader. So she told me she tried to think of other things while he was around, recite the National Anthem, that sort of thing. Every day, he would come to her and ... well, she'd show him what she'd seen that day. She couldn't help it, Bella. She tried not to look, but her visions are powerful. She can't fight them off most of the time."

Bella shook her head. "Jasper, I do _not_ hold that against her."

"Bella?" she heard Rose's voice, a faint whisper in her ear.

"Yes?" Bella turned to her, and immediately a stab of pity ached in her heart. Only Rose's upper body was defined; below the waist, she was nothing but curls of mist.

"Who are you talking to?" Jasper looked around.

Bella glanced at him. "Just a minute, Jasper."

"It's Carlisle," Rose said. "I think he's ... going."

Bella let out a gasp that was more like a sob. "Oh, no ... Are you sure?"

Rose said nothing. She didn't have to. The sadness in her eyes said it all.

"Bella, you knew this was coming," Edward said gently.

"I thought ... I hoped ..." Bella didn't need to say it. Edward knew she'd hoped for a miracle, that she'd believed that _something_ would save the day.

She stood. "I'll see you later, Jasper."

"Oh, okay." He looked confused.

Bella followed Rose. They found Esme seated against the glass wall, on the far side of the room, gazing out at the forest around them. She, too, had faded, using her power to blend into the background so that she could be alone, alone but for the angel she could not see, the faint, gauzy-mist angel who lay beside her on the floor, too weak to reach out to her. Only his eyes seemed substantial, with their hungry, desperate gaze fastened to her.

"What will happen to her?" Bella asked Edward, pitching her voice low as to not be overheard.

Edward shook his head. "I can't say. She's a good person, so I doubt she'll turn to the dark side, but she could easily surrender to hopelessness and despair."

Hot tears burned her eyes and coursed down Bella's cheeks. "Where is our goddam miracle? It isn't supposed to end this way!"

She tilted her head up to look at the at the dark carpet of clouds that covered the sky. "Do you hear me, God? We did what you wanted, and _this_ is how it ends for him? Do you hear me?" She pounded the side of her fist against the glass and sagged against it for a moment.

"Of course He hears you, Bella," Edward said gently.

"Don't you dare start talking about some stupid fucking 'plan'," Bella warned. "There's only so much bullshit I can take."

"Stop, Bella," Esme said. She rose to her feet and walked over to them. On the floor, Carlisle cried out and tried to reach for her, but fell back to the floor with a moan.

"This isn't _right!_" Bella shouted. She turned to Edward, her face fierce beneath her tears. "Tell your _Highest One_ that the next time He needs a fucking favor, to ask someone else."

Esme took Bella's hands in her own. "I know what's happening," she said. She closed her eyes for a moment. "I can feel it. I can feel him melting away like snow in sunshine. Soon, there will be nothing left. I'll only have this." She held up the recorder. "Bella, I want him to let go. I can't stand the thought of his suffering."

Bella dropped her hands and knelt on the floor beside Carlisle. She tried to lift his head to pillow it on her lap, but he slipped through her fingers like smoke. Bella sobbed. She tried to hold his hand, to no avail. She wasn't even sure he knew she was there, that someone was with him in his last moments, longing to give him even the slightest bit of comfort. Esme sat down beside Bella, right next to Carlisle, and he sighed, a soft sound like wind through a light curtain. He closed his eyes.

Bella covered her face with her hands and let go of the storm of anger and grief welling within her, her tears falling through him to the floor below. Edward knelt next to her and pulled her into his arms. Bella laid her head on his chest and he rocked her gently as she wept.

"It's not right, not right," Bella said bitterly.

"I know, baby," he whispered.

Rose and Emmett on either side of Carlisle and joined hands above his Fading body. Both of them extended their wings as wide as they would go. The clouds outside parted for a moment and a sunbeam poured through the window, reflecting so brightly off the tile floor that Bella had to look away for a moment. The light and warmth faded and when she looked back, Carlisle was gone.

"_NO_!" she shouted. She fought against Edward's arms. "No!"

"Bella, Bella, listen to me ..."

"No! Goddamit, _NO_!"

"You got your miracle, Bella," Edward said.

She froze. She looked at him and a sheen of tears blurred his features, but she saw the smile. "He's home, Bella. The Highest One brought him home. And he'll be there, whispering to her heart, waiting for her when her time comes."

"What?" Bella said. "Edward, really? _Really_?"

He was crying too, she saw, tears streaming down his cheeks, but his were of joy, not sorrow. "He's home."

* * *

><p>Bella and Edward passed Jenks on the stairs as they headed to their room. He saw the tears and alarm sharpened his eyes. "What's wrong?"<p>

"Nothing," Bella said. "Everything's all right now." She beamed at Edward and he smiled back, pulling her body against his side. "How did it go with the crew?"

"We lost two," Jenks admitted. "Alan and Randy opted to go join up with Amun's crew. The rest of the guys are staying."

"Even Collin?"

"He's staying for the hit, at least," Jenks said. "Bella, he's really not a bad guy. I wouldn't have him on my crew if I thought he was. It's just ... well, he's been doing this since he was a teenager. This was the only life he knew. This God shit ... I think it scares him and he doesn't know what to do about it. Give him a chance, okay? I think, in the end, he'll choose what's right."

Bell knew by now that Jenks's judgements were usually sound. "All right. What's the game plan?"

"We rest here for a few days and then head to the PC. We drop at least half of the Gifted at various locations along the coast. Then we head back to the West Coast to drop the rest of them before heading off to find Aro. According to the dossier that Amun gave me, he's probably in Colorado for the summer. He likes fly-fishing or some shit."

"Sounds good," Bella said. She smiled at him and she and Edward finished climbing the stairs to their room.

And there, wrapped in her angel's arms, safe in the soft, white world that only contained the two of them, she rested. And she sent up a prayer of thanks.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

..

"I'm not going to get up," Bella said.

"Mm," Edward agreed. He snuggled into her more closely.

"In fact, I may stay here all day," Bella continued.

"Sounds good," Edward mumbled.

There was a small thump on the end of the mattress and a little black puppy climbed over their legs and up between their torsos. He used his nose to try to root under the blankets. Edward lifted the covers for him and Dave tunneled down into the bed. He found a spot he liked behind the crook of Bella's knee and curled up there.

Someone knocked and Bella groaned.

"What?" Edward grunted.

"Bella? Edward? It's breakfast time." It was Alice's voice and she sounded infuriatingly chipper.

Edward raised his head. "Leave food. Outside door. Go away."

"Jenks needs to see Bella."

"For fuck's sake, Alice, we're sleeping!" Bella hollered.

"Oh, okay ... sorry." Alice sounded wounded and Bella sighed.

"Aw, dammit ... I'm coming, Alice," she called. "Well, it was a nice_ idea_ anyway, sleeping in." She tossed the covers off herself, and stretched with a loud yawn. Edward sat up. His wings were bedraggled with feathers poking out in all directions. He needed a good preening. Bella added it to her _Million and One Things To Do_ list.

"You don't have to get up," she told him. "No reason for both of us to suffer."

"I couldn't go back to sleep without you, anyway," Edward said. He stood and flexed his wings out to their widest and wandered toward the bathroom, scratching himself casually as he went.

Bella plucked Dave out from under the covers. "Sorry, little guy, but I've got to make the bed."

Dave gave a squeaky little yawn and Bella couldn't resist giving him a little cuddle. Manipulative little creature. She had a sneaking suspicion that he knew how cute he was. She plopped him down on her pillow and smoothed out the blankets and sheets. By the time she finished, Edward had finished with the bathroom and was leaning in the doorway.

"Shower?" he said hopefully.

She shook her head. "I better find out what Jenks wants."

He sighed and opened the bedroom door.

"Edward! Pants!" Bella yelled just as Alice, still in the hallway, shrieked and threw her hands up over her eyes.

He closed the door and gave Bella a sheepish grin. "Sorry."

"It's not me you should be apologizing to, it's the poor girl you just flashed."

She went into the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later to hear Alice say, "So, you picked what you wanted your body to be like and you didn't pick something ... you know ... _larger_?"

"I picked the average size for a human man," Edward defended himself. "Besides, it's not size that's important but how you use it."

"Morning," Bella said. She left the door ajar so Dave could come and go as he pleased. As noisy as the house was, he sometimes came up here for a quiet place to nap.

"Bella, do you think my-"

"You're perfect," Bella said quickly.

"See?" Edward smirked at Alice.

They tromped down the stairs. Edward sniffed the air and said, "Pancakes!" with the voice of a man in love.

Lauren carried in about half a dozen plates, balancing them like a combination of a waitress and circus act. She plunked them down on the table and smiled at Edward. "I made your favorite," she said.

Edward eagerly slid into a chair and grabbed a knife in one hand and a fork in the other, looking expectantly at his placemat.

"Hey, lazybones, why don't you go into the kitchen and grab the platter yourself?" Bella said.

He immediately looked guilty and contrite. "I'm sorry. I didn't think to help." He stood and headed off for the kitchen.

Bella looked pointedly around the table. "Room full of able-bodied persons and yet you all make Lauren wait on you. She's not the goddam staff here, people."

"Jenks has really been a bad influence on your language, Bella," Alice said.

"Stuff it, Psychic Girl," Bella replied.

Several people rose from the table, looking abashed and headed off into the kitchen to offer assistance. Collin was not one of them. He sat in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest with a raised eyebrow in Bella's direction as if to say, "_What are you going to do about it?_"

Bella rolled her eyes. "Yes, Collin, your rebellious badassery has been duly noted."

He blinked and his smirk melted away.

"Where's Jenks?" Bella asked.

"Dunno. He was just here." Alice looked around.

Bella spotted him over by one of the glass walls, a cell phone held to his ear. She went into the kitchen and gave the scrambled eggs on the stove a stir with her talent as she picked up a platter of fried hasbrowns to take to the table. To her surprise, Collin was right behind her and he picked up the pitchers of milk and juice without a word and transported them to the table.

Jenks finished with his call around the same time they all finished bringing breakfast to the table. He seated himself at the table, picked up his fork and started to shovel in his first bite right as Edward said, "Dear Lord ..."

He sighed and waited, syrup dripping off the pancakes speared on his fork. "Do we have to do this _every_ time we eat?" he asked after Edward said _Amen. _"You know, maybe do like an 'update' prayer once a week and say _'We're still grateful and shit'_?"

"It's a prayer, Jenks, not a Twitter account."

"I know, but it just kinda feels weird to be thanking God for the food when I don't think he had much to do with the whole, you know, procurement process. I stole it, Lauren cooked it."

Bella shrugged. "Maybe he gave you the chance to steal it and eat it without getting caught."

"Saying, '_Dear God, thanks for that freighter I jacked'_ doesn't seem appropriate."

"Well, there you go. Giving up your life of crime has the added benefit of allowing you to say nicer prayers. What did you want, anyway? Alice said you wanted to see me?"

"Yeah." He wiped off his mouth. "I need you to go shopping."

"Shopping? For what?"

"All the shit they need." Jenks waved his fork at the people eating in the living room. Dave had discovered that there was food to be had and galloped down the stairs. He was currently running back and forth between Jane and Esme, who tossed pieces of toast for him to catch. She sighed. The _'no peoplefood'_ rule was going to be impossible to enforce, so they might as well give it up and hope that was something that faded from Dave's patchy memory after the Gifted were sent on their way.

"People were bitching this morning because they didn't have toothbrushes and clean clothes and shit," Jenks said.

"Why me? Why not Alice? She told me once she used to actually _like_ shopping."

Alice bounced a little in her chair as if she were restraining herself with effort from throwing up her hand and shouting, "Pick me! Pick me!"

"Therein lies the problem with that one," Jenks said. "She'd be, like, trying to coordinate outfits and buying designer shit. We just need the stuff for them to get through about a week's worth of time. You're the most recognizable, I know, but you're also the one who can defend herself from just about anything they throw at you, even without Edward backing you up."

She couldn't argue with his logic. "All right, but how am I going to get there?"

Jenks stared at her. "Did you forget you have an angel who can_ fly_?"

"He doesn't have a cargo hold, Jenks, and you're asking me to buy a lot of shit."

"Oh, yeah ..." Jenks scratched his chin. "Multiple trips?"

"We'll figure it out, I guess," Bella said. "Do you want me to get money out of one of the duffel bags?"

"Nah, I got pesos in the office," Jenks replied. "I'll grab you some after breakfast. Listen, Bella, I've been thinking, and I'm really not comfortable with you ..." He glanced around the table. "With you doing what Amun asked. I was just on the phone with a ... subcontractor. How would you feel about bringing someone else on board?"

"If you feel he's trustworthy, I'll trust your judgement."

"It'll cut into the profits," Jenks warned.

Bella shrugged. "I'm not in it for the money."

Jenks gazed at her for a moment. "Give it some thought and let me know tonight, all right?"

"Yeah, all right," Bella said. "But, really, Jenks, if you think it's a good idea, as I said, I trust your judgement."

"That's just it, Bella, I'm not so sure I trust my judgement on this one. I don't know if I'm thinking of it because we need the help or if I'm just trying to keep your hands clean."

'You let me worry about my own conscience." Bella rose from the table and took her plate in to the sink. She rinsed it off and turned to put it in the dishwasher and ran right into Edward. She yelped. "Jeeze, what did I tell you about sneaking up on me like that?"

"I'm sorry. Bella, I think you may want to take Jenks's suggestion."

"Is this the '_clean hands'_ thing? Because I think God would probably frown on me planning a murder and wouldn't be put off by such niceties as who actually pulls the trigger. Besides, I've already killed lots of people. What does one more matter?"

She'd shocked him, she saw. He silently watched her load her plate and fork into the dishwasher.

"It matters to me," he said. "Don't pretend to be blasé about it, Bella, because you're not. I know your heart and I've seen that as you are beginning to process all that happened that night, you're starting to feel troubled about what you did at the facility."

"I'm not even sure _what_ I did at the facility," Bella retorted. "I was seeing things. But that's not an excuse or the only reason. People died because they were in my way."

"That's not-"

"Edward, can we please not talk about this?" She gave him a pained smile. "Not right now, okay?"

"Bella, you're hurting and it's my job to-"

"Maybe I need to hurt a little," Bella said. "Maybe I _should_ hurt a little. Killing people shouldn't be something you shrug off, or eased from your conscience with platitudes. Do you remember that movie _Unforgiven_?"

He nodded. "You went with Jasper to see it in the theater and you fell asleep in the middle of it."

"There was the one line that stuck with me: '_It's a hell of a thing killing a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever going to have'._" Bella closed the dishwasher and went up the stairs, leaving Edward behind in the kitchen, watching as she went.

* * *

><p>Bella put her bright red hair up into a baseball cap and put on a pair of sunglasses borrowed from Jenks. She and Edward went up on the roof, which was an easier take-off for Edward. She had several of the large duffel bags stuffed inside of each other. Edward figured he could carry one on each arm and Bella could hold one on her lap. Any more than that and they'd probably have to make another trip.<p>

Edward began flapping his wings as he ran toward the edge of the roof because while he liked the sensation of free-fall before his wings caught the air, Bella most decidedly did not. They were airborne almost before they reached the edge and he smoothly soared out over the forest. Bella laughed out loud when she saw the thin strip of trees that she had thought was jungle surrounding Jenks's house was really little more than a patch of woods. Houses dotted the landscape here and there, rich peoples' large estates rather than the isolated, untouched wilderness that she had imagined. He had no electricity lines and no driveway, but other than that, Jenks wasn't that off-the-grid.

"What do you want to do once this is over?" Edward asked.

Bella didn't know how to answer the question. She had never imagined a time when this _would_ be over, much less made plans for it.

"It would be good for you if you did," he said, following her line of thought. "Planning for the future, looking forward to something. What about a baby?"

"You seem to be sort of stuck on this idea of me having kids," Bella said.

"I like kids," Edward replied. "They're a lot like angels, if you think about it."

She could see why he'd think that way. Playful, enthusiastic, curious ... Until life burned it out of them. God, she was getting cynical, she thought.

"You'd make a good mother," he said.

She shook her head. "I wouldn't want to pass this ... talent on to a child."

"You might think differently if you hadn't been programmed to see it as a liability. The crew calls you the Gifted because they really do see what you have as_ gifts_. Most people would. You have the ability to do amazing things, Bella, but you've felt you had to hide your light from the world. Well, what if the world wasn't like that?"

"Yeah, and what if there was no racism or xenophobia? There's no use in speculating what life would be like in a wonderful world where everyone embraced differences and we all ended disputes with a jaunty musical number. We live in _this_ world, Edward, and in this world, people think of people like me as freaks. And then they want to dissect you to see what makes you tick."

He was silent for a moment. "You're becoming very cynical, Bella."

"I call it '_realistic_'."

Edward banked toward a strip mall that had a large big-box chain store at the end of it. They landed at the side, behind a dumpster and Bella stashed the duffel bags behind it. Edward took her hand in his and they strolled into the store.

"This will probably go faster if we split up," Bella said. "Could you go to the health and beauty section and get enough toothbrushes, hairbrushes, combs and that sort of stuff for everyone? I'll go get the clothes."

He was hesitant.

"Go on," she said. "I'm just, like, a hundred feet away. If there's trouble, you'd be here in an instant."

He nodded and kissed her before heading off to do her bidding.

Bella went first into the underwear aisle because this would probably prove to be the easiest. Sports bras and cotton underpants that would fit a range of sizes in five-packs for the ladies and jersey boxer briefs for the men. Socks- she'd forgotten socks on her list. She turned the cart around and went to the next aisle, tossing in packs of black socks in a range of styles. Black went with everything, right?

She grabbed nearly the whole rack worth of black yoga pants; the size differences would be more forgiving than jeans, and would be more comfortable, too.

"Well, hello, Bella."

Bella whirled as she threw up a shield. She felt a burst of electricity hum in her chest like a battering charging up and then she saw who had spoken. "Oh! Hi, Amun."

He grinned, and it gave his handsome face a charmingly boyish look. His two body guards remained about a yard behind him, their faces as grim as a funeral procession. "You seem a bit jumpy, Bella."

"Being the INTERPOL poster girl will do that for you," she said. She glanced around. Standing there in his beautifully tailored designer suit, Amun looked as out of place as a nun in a biker bar. "What are you doing in _here_?"

He held up a can of shaving cream. "Ran out this morning."

He bought his own toiletries? In a chain store? Bella would have expected him to use some obscure European brand she wouldn't be able to pronounce. "I didn't know you lived in town."

He smiled. "I don't. I just found something ... that caught my interest and thought I might linger for a bit."

She heard a rumbling sound behind her and turned to see Edward stalking toward them, his arms filled with colorful toothbrush packages. They dropped from his arms as he walked but he didn't even pause. His eyes had narrowed into slits.

Amun's smile widened, but his bodyguards snapped to attention. Their hands slipped beneath their jackets. "Hello ... Edmund, was it?"

"_Edward_," Bella corrected.

"We. Need. Toothpaste." Edward dropped the toothbrushes into the cart as if throwing down a gauntlet at Amun's feet.

Amun seemed positively delighted by Edward's reaction. "So nice to see you again."

Edward didn't say anything. A muscle in his cheek twitched.

"Well, we'd better go get that toothpaste. Nice seeing you again." Bella felt awkward. This was why she always hated social situations, because she never knew what to say or how to smooth over strained moments. She bent and picked up a couple of the dropped toothbrush packages and tossed them into the cart. She heard that rumbling sound again as they walked away and she stared at Edward. "You're _growling_? What's with you and growling at Amun?"

"I don't like him." Edward's jaw was clenched and his knuckles were white on the cart's handle.

"Okay," she said. "Any particular reason?"

Edward didn't answer.

Bella grabbed some boxes of toothpaste, some cans of shaving gel and big packs of disposable razors. They made her think of the time Edward had tried shaving and she smiled.

"What are you smiling about?" Edward demanded.

She blinked at him. "You don't know?"

He raked a hand though his hair. "No ... it's fuzzy."

"I was thinking about the time you tried shaving," she said slowly. "Edward, are you all right?"

"Fine," he replied, his voice terse. She'd never heard him use that tone before and didn't quite know what to make of it. "Are we done?" he asked.

"Just a few more things," she promised. She picked a box of hair dye at random, blonde this time. She grabbed bottles of shampoo and conditioner, hairbrushes and combs, and then the thought occurred to her that it might be a good idea to have some feminine hygiene products on hand. She turned back to toss them in the cart and saw him standing there with a bottle of shampoo in his hand. "I like this," he said. She took it from him and sniffed. It smelled a bit like strawberries.

"It will smell nice on you," he said. He put the bottle in the cart and then put his hands on her shoulders. "Bella, I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"It's all right," she said. It happened inevitably in every relationship, after the honeymoon was over.

"No!" He wrapped his arms around her. "Bella, no, I'm not going to treat you differently. I ... Something strange happened and I don't know what to think of it. I need to talk to Emmett and Rose."

She smiled at him gently. "Let's pay for this stuff and then we can go home."

Fortunately, they were able to fit everything into the bags and return in only one trip. Bella felt like Santa Claus when everyone crowded around, eager for their fresh clothes and toiletries. She passed the items out, making mental notes of the things she'd forgotten to get and saw Edward sitting over near Esme, talking earnestly to Rose and Emmett, but when he was finished, he seemed more troubled than ever. She supposed he'd tell her about it when he was ready, but she really wished she knew what was bothering him so much. Had it been something that she did? What would make her mind cloudy to him?

And then it hit her with a sort of numb horror. Maybe she was turning evil. He had told her that people who went to the dark side didn't hear their angel whispering in their hearts any more; maybe it worked both ways. And maybe he'd been testy earlier because he didn't feel good. She could be causing him to Fade.

_Oh no, no no no._

Oh, why hadn't she listened to Jenks? Why had she jumped in when he hesitated to take the contract? She had committed to doing something that might destroy her angel.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

..

Bella sat on the bed behind Edward, helping him to preen his wings. Each feather had to be straightened, stroked from follicle to tip to keep them clean and silky, smoothed out if the vane had split and tucked back into place beside its neighbors. The soft, downy ones between his wings, where he could not reach, were the most bedraggled. A few were even broken, which he said she needed to pluck. He didn't act like it hurt, but Bella thought it had to be at least as uncomfortable as tweezing your eyebrows.

"Could you scratch ... please .. up about an inch? _There_ ... ahh!" Edward arched under her fingers. "Oh, that feels nice." He extended his wings to their widest and gave them a little shake before retracting them back into place.

"Feel better?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you."

"_All_ better?" she stressed.

"I'm so sorry I snapped at you Bella. I really am."

"I know, Edward. I'm not angry at you. I'm just curious as to what made you that upset."

"Something strange happened to me," he replied, and sat back down on the bed. He took the little pile of broken feathers that Bella had made and tugged them through his fingers. "It was awful. It was like I was ... distant from you and I couldn't hear your thoughts any more. That's never happened to me before. It was only a few minutes, and it was one of the most awful feelings I've ever had. If this is what Rose and Emmett feel like every day ..." He shook his head.

"Did Rose and Emmett have any answers for you?"

"Not really. Some suggestions, some guesses."

She sat down on his lap. "We'll figure it out," she said. He wrapped his wings around her and she sighed with happiness to be back in that soft, cloud-like world he could create for her, a world which she wished she never had to leave. She felt his lips touch hers and she-

Someone knocked on the door. Edward gave a soft groan of protest.

"Ignore them," Bella said.

"Bella!" it was Jenks and he thumped his fist against the door hard enough to make it shake it in its frame.

"Maybe something's wrong." Bella sighed and Edward retracted his wings. She got off his lap and headed to the door to open it. "What?"

"Amun wants to see you," Jenks replied, and he did not look happy.

"Amun? Why?"

"I don't fuckin' know, ask him." Jenks snapped. She gave him a pass for being grouchy because she didn't think he'd been getting much sleep. He was in his office until all hours, on the phone, on the computer, plotting out their route to avoid patrolled areas. Each leg of the trip had to be carefully planned for fuel stops and also to buy food. (The boat didn't have a galley.) They also had to have emergency contacts in case the boat needed repairs that the crew couldn't manage, and trustworthy, discreet physicians who could treat any injuries that they might sustain. All in all, it was a lot more planning and organization than she had imagined.

Bella went down the stairs and saw Amun waiting for her, leaning negligently on the railing. He wasn't wearing a suit this time. Instead he was dressed in black slacks with a gray v-neck pullover.

"Hey," Bella said. "What's up?"

"May I speak to you, please?" He flicked his eyes at Edward, who had followed her downstairs and now stood on the final stair, gripping the rail so tightly that the wood cracked.

"Yeah, sure," Bella said. She followed him down the metal stairs outside and sat down on the bottom step. It had cooled down some over the afternoon and the evening air was pleasant.

Amun lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. "I was hoping you'd have dinner with me."

"Uh ..." Bella said, brilliantly articulate as always.

"Tonight would have been my seventh anniversary with Victoria." He smiled at her slightly. "We had this tradition, she and I. We always went to the restaurant where we had our fist date. This is the second year I'll go there alone if you tell me no."

"Oh, Amun, I'm so sorry."

"I was hoping you could tell me something about her life there." He drew hard on the cigarette and looked away, tension evident in his face. "That you could tell me if she ... suffered while she was there."

"Give me a sec. I'll get my purse." Bella went back into the house and Edward was waiting for her. He wordlessly handed her the small purse she carried. It contained only lip gloss, a pair of sunglasses and some money, but like many women, she felt naked without a purse.

"Love you," she said to Edward and kissed his cheek. He didn't reply, which was odd. "Are you all right?"

"Fine. Enjoy your evening."

She gazed at him for a moment, but his face was impassive. Blinking in confusion, she went back out to the patio and joined Amun. "Do we ... um ... walk to the restaurant?"

"No, I have a car waiting not far from here. Thank you for coming, Bella. I appreciate it."

They walked out of the trees into a small clearing where a SUV waited, a driver standing beside the door, wearing a black suit and dark sunglasses. Bella saw the curl of a wire near his ear, and wondered if he spoke into his wrist like the Secret Service. He opened the back door before they even reached it and held out his hand to assist Bella inside. She smiled at him and settled into her seat. Amun went around the back and climbed in on the other side.

"This isn't a fancy place, is it?" Bella asked, a little worried about her yoga pants and t-shirt.

"You're fine," Amun said with a smile. "Tell me something, Bella. You have an ... _ability,_ yes, like my Victoria did?"

She nodded after a small pause.

He sat back and seemed to digest this news. They didn't speak again until the car had pulled up in front of the restaurant, a low, discreet building with smoked glass windows and concealed lights that illuminated its facade. A red carpet covered the walkway under a long, curved canopy of white and green stripes and valets waited at a small podium, and opened car doors for people in evening clothes. "Amun!" she wailed. "I am _not_ dressed for this place!"

"Sure you are. When you're very rich, you can wear whatever you want."

"I'm not rich."

He shrugged. "I am. Come on." He led her inside. The_ maître d'_ greeted him like a beloved friend and gushed in Spanish, leading them straight back to a secluded table which had lush plants around it, giving the diners the illusion of privacy. "This was 'our' table," Amun said. He held out Bella's chair for her and she sat down with a sigh.

She picked up the leather menu laid down in front of her by an equally effusive server and glanced inside. "This is all in Spanish, so I'll have to trust you to read it to me."

"Not Spanish," Amun said with a small smile. "French."

Bella looked at it again, a flush brightening her cheekbones. "Ah, yeah ... so it is. Well, anyway, can't read that either." She closed it with a snap and gave him a sheepish smile.

"Have the prime rib," he suggested. "It's delightful."

"Sounds good."

"Would you like a glass of wine?"

"I'd rather have a Coke," she ventured.

Amun chuckled. "Have some wine." He made a small gesture with his hands and a waiter in a tuxedo, bearing a bottle wrapped in a towel, artfully poured Bella's glass half full of light amber wine. She took a sip and her eyes widened. "Wow, this is _good_."

"Don't sound so surprised," Amun said.

"Well, I usually don't like wine," Bella explained. "And usually the highbrow stuff tastes the worst."

"Veblen goods," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"It's a term used in economics," Amun said. He turned the stem of his wineglass in his fingers as he spoke. "It means something that people want _because_ it's expensive, not because it's necessarily better in quality."

"Did you study economics in college?"

He gave her that boyish grin that made her breath catch in spite of herself. "No. I guess you could say I'm self-educated."

_Get back on track, Bella_. "Where did you meet Victoria?"

_"That's_ a story I don't think I'll tell you. I'll simply say that we were co-workers and that she and I hit it off rather quickly, though it took me a while to convince her to date me."

"Really?" Bella said and then flushed. She had said it like she couldn't believe any woman would turn him down.

He grinned. "Yes,_ really._ Once I talked her into it, though, we had a good thing going. She was taken right after our fifth anniversary."

The only thing she could do was say again, "I'm sorry."

He nodded. "Tell me more about this facility. Who ran it? Where did they get their funding? Anything you know."

"I don't know much," Bella admitted. She told the story of her own captivity and what she had learned from the other residents. "I never spoke to Victoria while I was there. But Jane was very close to her. Victoria was something like an adoptive mother for her."

"Hmm. I can't see Tori as the motherly type."

"I think that's why she was chosen, to tell you the truth."

Their meals arrived and were served ceremoniously. Bella declined fresh-grated pepper and cut into her steak. Blood squished out and she gulped back nausea. It was rare inside. _Really_ rare. She had never been able to send food back to the kitchen in a restaurant. She knew it was silly, but she always worried she would hurt the chef's feelings or make him angry.

Amun cut into his equally rare chunk of meat and popped a piece in his mouth. "Problem?"

"Uh ... no. No problem." She took a bite of her potato. She could eat that at least. She didn't want to even look at the steak, but she had to do something. She cut it up into smaller and smaller pieces. She found a few nibbles around the edge she could eat.

"How did you get out of the facility?" Amun asked.

Bella dropped her knife with a clatter. "I ... I escaped."

"Obviously. How?" His eyes were intent. He didn't even break his gaze as he lifted his glass and took a sip of his wine.

"Well ..."

"Did Edward help you?"

"Yes." That much she was willing to say.

"Was he one of the Gifted?"

"He's Gifted in his own way," Bella hedged.

"I see." he sat back in his seat and took another sip of his wine. He held up his glass and the waiter who was apparently assigned this this task alone scurried forward to fill it. Was that what being rich was like? Bella wondered. Lifting your glass and knowing there would be someone there to fill it for you immediately without even having to ask? The waiter poured a few more drops into Bella's glass as well and then stepped back to his position by the wall, silent and watchful.

"Are you lovers?"

Bella had just taken a bite of potato and at that question, she sucked in a shocked breath. Human lungs were never meant to ingest potato and so Bella convulsed in a coughing fit that sprayed bits of the offending tuber over the whole table.

"Drink this!" Amun handed her a glass of water which had materialized out of nowhere and she drank in between whooping gasps for air. "S-sorry," she choked. "Oh G-God, s-s-orry."

"Are you all right?"

Bella's face was cherry red and not just from the coughing fit. She wanted to crawl under the table. She gulped some more water. "I'm sorry."

He waved away their plates and the waiters whisked them off the table and even changed the table cloth in a fast, coordinated dance that would have been interesting to watch if she wasn't so horrified to be the cause of it. A piece of chocolate cake on a plate artistically drizzled with chocolate sauce and some sort of red sauce was plunked on the table between them and they each received a folded napkin with a fork. As usual, the waiters spun away so fast once their tasks were complete that Bella had no chance to thank them.

"Will you help me eat this?" Amun asked. "I love the cake here, but it's so rich I can never finish a piece by myself. I'd hate for it to go to waste."

"What's the red stuff?"

"Raspberry sauce."

Bella picked up her fork and picked a small bite off the corner of the piece. She tucked it into her mouth and her eyes bulged. "Oh my God, that's incredible."

Amun grinned. "Glad you like it. Now, are you gong to answer my question?"

"No, I don't think so," Bella muttered, her face burning so hot she was surprised the icing didn't start to drip off the cake.

"Which means _'yes'_," Amun said, and gave her that charming grin. She had an idea that he knew just what sort of effect it had on women. "Don't be embarrassed. Are you exclusive?"

Aw, Jeeze, what sort of question was that? Did she look like the kind of woman who had a string of lovers that she alternated as the whim took her? She put her fork down. "Listen, Amun, I'm sorry, but this has turned out to be a pretty stressful evening, and I'd like to go home now."

"Whatever you want, Bella," he said. He rose from his chair and held out his hand.

"Don't we have to wait for the check, or something?"

"Taken care of," he said. She took his hand and he helped her to her feet, then slid the hand up her arm to rest on her shoulder. Alarm bells started going off, but maybe he was just being polite. She shied away and his hand dropped. She thought she heard him chuckle as she climbed into the SUV.

"You didn't tell me anything about yourself," she said quickly, an attempt to cover for her awkwardness. "Where are you from?"

"Egypt."

"Really? Oh, wow ... I always wanted to go there."

He gave her a little smile. "Say the word and we'll go right now."

Bella laughed nervously. "Be serious."

"I am. Say '_yes' _and I'll have my driver take us to the airport."

Now she really was nervous. This wasn't turning out the way she had expected. He was looking at her with a hot, hooded gaze, and she looked away quickly.

She didn't wait for the driver to open her door when the SUV pulled up in the little clearing near Jenks's house. "Thanks-for-dinner-goodnight," she said, so fast it sounded like a single word, and yanked at the door handle. It wouldn't open. She yanked again.

"Bella, look at me." Amun's voice was soft and insistent. Bella forced her gaze from the floor up to meet his eyes and that's when he kissed her. His arms went around her and he pinned her against the seat. He nipped her lips, his tongue seeking entrance. She pushed at his shoulders and turned her head. "No, stop, please."

He sat back, still watching her with those dark, hooded eyes. They glittered like obsidian in the dim light.

She yanked at the door handle again. "Let me go."

"You have to unlock it first," he said.

"Oh." She looked at the door and saw the lever with the little orange patch on it. She flipped it and the door opened when she tugged on the handle. "Thanks for dinner."

He said nothing. He simply watched her.

She shut the door and dashed down the little path through the trees. She saw the lights of the house and hurried toward them. She didn't know why she was running, precisely. She didn't think Amun would chase her or try to force her into anything. And then she knew. She was running toward Edward, toward his arms, the only place she wanted to be right now. She wanted to curl up against his chest and tell him the whole story, though it was dawning on her that he had understood better than she had all along. No wonder he hadn't liked Amun! She felt like a moron for not recognizing it herself, but she hadn't had much experience with men, and found the idea that anyone would be attracted to her somewhat surprising.

She pushed the green button on the box on the concrete pillar. Jenks must have known it was her because he let down the staircase without demanding she identify herself. She started climbing them before they had even completely touched down on the ground. The living room was dark when she entered. Had everyone already gone to bed? She didn't think it was that late.

"I can't fuckin' believe you," Jenks said, from the shadows.

Bella jumped. "Shit! You scared me."

He shook his head in disgust and turned away.

"What?" she demanded.

"_'What_?' You go out on a date with another guy and you come back and ask '_What'_?"

"I didn't know it was a date," Bella said in a small voice.

"Yeah, whatever."

"Jenks, I'm telling you the truth. He made it sound like he wanted to ask me questions about the facility and that it was just for company so he wouldn't be alone on his anniversary. I felt sorry for him. Jenks!"

Jenks didn't even pause. He stomped up the stairs and she heard the slam of a door.

Edward materialized next to her. "Don't worry, I'll explain to him."

Bella let out a little shriek. "Jesus, Edward!" How many times tonight had someone scared the living hell out of her by just appearing abruptly? Was she really that unaware of her surroundings?

"I didn't mean to scare you."

"How long have you been there?" She had a vision of him sitting down here, by himself, waiting in the dark for her to come home, like a neglected puppy and inwardly cringed.

"Here? Just since we came up the stairs."

"We? You followed me?" Her eyes widened and she realized with a sick jolt that he had seen everything. She had expected him to see her thoughts of course, but having him stand by as a silent witness was so much worse.

"Of course I went with you," he said. "I wouldn't leave you alone like that."

She remembered what he had said about if she wanted a human man, that he would simply disappear and she would never know he was there. And then it all clicked into place.

She threw herself into his arms. "Edward, I'm so sorry!"

"No, I'm the one who should be sorry," he said gently. "I was jealous. I didn't recognize the emotion because I've never felt it before. I told you I wouldn't stand in your way if you wanted someone else, but Bella ... please ... Not him."

She opened her mouth but no sound emerged.

"There's something about him. I can't put my finger on it, but he's ... Bella, please, he's not right for you."

"I don't want him," she managed. "I want you."

He let out a shuddering breath and laid his head on top of hers. He wrapped his wings tightly around her. "It clouded me," he said.

"What did?"

"The jealousy. I figured it out. Every time I felt it, I couldn't hear you. The jealousy cut me off from you. I didn't know what you were thinking and Bella, I was so afraid."

"Oh, my God, I thought I was making you Fade," she whispered. "I thought what I'd promised to do with Aro, that I was going evil and I was making you start to Fade."

He looked horrified. "Oh, Bella, no ...Oh, sweetheart, you're _not_ evil."

"But, what I agreed to do-"

He took her face between his hands. "Bella, you are not evil. Please, if you've ever believed a word I've said, believe this. I should have figured you'd find a way to make this your fault! You poor girl." He squeezed her tighter and peppered her face with kisses.

"You're not Fading?" she insisted. "I'm not hurting you? You're sure?"

"I was hurt when I thought you wanted him, but emotionally, not physically. I'm not Fading Bella, I promise you."

"God, I was so dumb," Bella said. "I didn't realize what he was up to until we left the restaurant. If I'd known he meant it as a date, I never would have gone."

"I know, baby. I know." He scooped her up in his arms in one smooth movement and started up the stairs to their room.

"I love you," she whispered. "I love you so much."

Jenks opened his door as they reached the top. "I'm sorry, Bella," he said. "I assumed-"

"Can this wait for morning?" Edward asked. "I think we're going to have sex now."

Jenks grinned. "Yeah, it can wait."


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

..

Amun was seated at the table when Bella came down for breakfast the next morning. She froze in her tracks so abruptly that Edward crashed into the back of her and had to quickly reach out and grab her before she tumbled down the stairs.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

He held up a fork. "Eating waffles."

Bella descended the stairs and went over to Jenks, who was seated on the sofa, one ankle propped on the opposite knee, his eyes intent on the television. Edward stopped at the foot of the stairs, looked into the dining room and then at Bella, and then back at the dining room, clearly torn over whether he should follow her or give in to the siren call of home-made waffles. Bella smiled at him and made a shooing motion at him and he surrendered to the waffles.

"Jenks."

"What?" He didn't even bother to look at her.

"Jenks!" Bella lifted her foot and knocked the propped-up ankle off his leg. He jolted and glared up at her. "What the fuck?"

"What's Amun doing eating waffles in the dining room?"

"He wanted to come over. Was I supposed to tell him 'no' or something?"

"After you bitched at me last night for going out to dinner with him? Yeah, that probably would have been the right thing to do."

Jenks cleared his throat. "You don't exactly tell a guy like Amun to fuck off unless you're ready to back it up. And I'll tell you right now, I'm not. Edward maybe, but not me."

'"Bella, come have breakfast," Amun called. "I saved you a seat."

"Just a minute," Bella called in a falsely cheerful tone.

"He said he wanted to talk to Jane," Jenks told her. "About Victoria."

"I think he's over-using this _grieving widower_ thing just a tad," Bella said sourly. She went into the dining room and Amun stood, offering her the seat beside his own. He pushed in her chair as Bella sat and . Edward had switched seats with Esme and now sat on her left. Bella gave him a smile and he gave her a big, smacking kiss on the lips. He plucked a waffle off the platter with the tongs and dropped it on her plate.

"Syrup?" Amun asked, holding up the pitcher.

"No thanks," Bella said, though she did like syrup on her waffles. She just didn't feel like taking anything from him. She scooted a little closer to Edward.

"Have you read my dossier on Aro, Bella?" Amun asked, his tone business-like.

She felt like a kid who hadn't done her homework. "I think Jenks still has it."

"Well, I'll sum it up for you: It would be easier if you were trying to invade the White House. The man has some of the best security in the world. I'm hoping your team has someone who's an expert in electronics ... security systems and the like?"

"Ben," she said and nodded in his direction. Ben heard his name and pulled out his iPod's earbuds. "Yeah?"

"Pop quiz, hotshot: How do you disable a TanseraNet system?"

"A what?" Ben said.

Okay, so much for their electronics expert.

"The general also has some very high-powered Gifted working his security team."

"I remember Jacob saying that we could be trained for that sort of thing. How powerful are we talking?"

"Hopefully, a peek into the Theta Project's mainframe will tell us."

"_Us_?" Bella asked. "What do you mean, _us_?"

"I mean that you need my help. Ben is good, but he's not _that_ good. Jenks has been working his contacts for two days and still hasn't been able to find out where the mainframe is stored. It took me ten minutes to find out and that includes my smoke break."

"You know where all the records are stored?" Bella breathed.

"I do."

"Where?"

"I'll take your team there when you're ready," Amun said. A small smile tugged at his lips.

"It's our job. You're paying _us_ to do it, remember?"

"I want you to be successful and you won't be unless you have the proper tools. If I told you where the mainframe was, what would you do?"

"See if Ben could break into it and get the info we need and then smash the hell out of it, I suppose."

"And not think about backups?"

"I was sort of going off the assumption Ben would know what we needed to do," Bella admitted. She was piss-poor at planning, which is why Jenks had been the one working out the details of their trip back to the U.S.

Amun shook his head. "No offense to you, Ben, but you're in way over your head, here."

"None taken," Ben replied. "I know my limitations."

"You want those records destroyed, don't you?" Amun asked Bella.

She nodded. To her, it was the most important part of the mission. It would allow the Gifted to live normal lives without having to be on the run, constantly watching over their shoulders for "them".

"Then you need me." He smiled. "I can guarantee you a clean wipe of their entire system."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I've done it before."

Bella dropped her fork. "What do you mean? Done _what_ before?"

"I mean that I took down a similar program in another country. I wiped every trace of it from the earth." Amun helped himself to another waffle and slathered it with butter.

"Why hire us to kill Aro, then, if you could do it yourself?"

Amun sipped from his coffee cup. "I wasn't interested in exerting the effort at the time. Now I am."

Edward put his arm around Bella and glared at Amun. It only made Amun grin. "Don't get testy, Edmund. I'm not going to try to steal Bella from you. She's made it clear she's not interested."

"_Edward,_" Bella corrected.

"It started as a simple assassination, but then I discovered that you and I have coinciding goals. I want Aro dead and you want the records destroyed. We need those records to see who's working with him and what we're up against. If you go in and fail, he's going to increase his security and it will take years before he's complacent again."

Bella had forgotten breakfast entirely. "Why did you take down the other program?"

"Money," Amun replied, and shoveled a large bite of waffle into his mouth.

She wondered if there was more to it than he was telling but she knew she wasn't going to get anything out of him right now.

Both he and Edward reached for the last waffle simultaneously, both with a fork poised to stab it. They both froze and then the glares came out. Edward's stare was of burning intensity, much like the flames on his sword, while Amun's was cold and blood-chilling, the merciless obsidian stare of a shark. Bella didn't know much about Amun but she was pretty sure he was not just an ordinary human. She had the distinct impression that World War III was about to break out and she could do nothing but stare in dismay. Number II started over the death of an Archduke. History would record a simple waffle had been what destroyed civilization. Apparently, Ben felt the same way because he stood and _sloooooowly_ backed away from the table. Esme faded, virtually disappearing from Bella's sight.

"Boys, boys," Lauren said hastily. She pulled the platter away from them. "I'll have some more done in a second, okay?"

"Wonderful. Thank you." Amun broke off from the glaring contest and his expression changed faster than Bella could blink. He gave her one of those charming, boyish smiles and Lauren turned pink.

Bella reached up and turned Edward's face toward her. His eyes softened instantly. "Let it go," she said softly.

"I don't like him," Edward said.

Amun grinned. "You don't say."

Edward stood. "I'm done."

"Don't leave now. It's just starting to get interesting." Amun's tone was positively jovial.

Bella heard the hum of the retractable stair case and the rapid click of nails on tile. Dave scrambled toward Edward but when he saw Amun, he put on the brakes and slid to a stop on his rump. He stood, backed up a step and whimpered.

"Dave," Edward beckoned, and the puppy ran to him. Edward scooped up the little dog into his arms. "Let's go back to our room, Bella."

"Great idea," she replied. She followed him up the stairs without a backward glance.

"Well, that was weird," she said, as soon as Edward had shut the door."He had every confidence that Jenks could kill Aro the other day, and now he's suddenly so worried that he has to go with us to make sure we do it right?"

"I don't believe that is the reason at all," Edward said.

"What did Dave say?"

"He called Amun the '_black man_'."

"Well, Amun is sort of honey-colored, but I wouldn't call him black."

Edward shook his head. "Remember that he called Collin a '_dark man.'_ He's saying that Amun is even darker. Black. Dave is afraid of him."

Bella sat down on the bed and Edward deposited Dave beside her. He crawled up on her lap and bumped her hand with the top of his head to remind her she should be petting him. Bella obeyed.

"Amun can be antagonistic, but I don't think he's _evil_," she said.

"There's something ... _different_ about him. I don't know what it is."

"Do you have any sort of ability to tell whether someone's evil? Like, look into their heart or something?"

He shook his head. "Only yours. I can sometimes see a person's heart from their eyes, but I can't get anything from Amun."

"If he really is evil, we can't let him come on this mission no matter what abilities he has."

Edward knelt in front of her and laid his head in her lap. She stroked his hair. "He was lying when he said he wasn't going to try to take you away from me."

Bella lifted his chin. "Well, he can try, but I'm not going anywhere. I love you, Edward. And if you can look into my heart, you'll see that it belongs to you, and you alone."

There was a tap at the door and Bella sighed. Edward stood to answer it, and Dave bounded off of the bed to stand beside him. Alice stood outside and she looked upset. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," said Bella. "What's up?"

Alice stood in the center of the floor and hugged her arms tightly to herself. Emmett drifted behind her, little more than a white shadow now. Bella missed them, the Fallen. After they lost their ability to turn solid because they were around their humans, no one even asked about them any more, as if they had faded from people's memories as they themselves Faded. Emmett floated around Alice as if looking for an angle that would allow him to hold her and comfort her as she sorely needed.

It was a moment before she spoke, and when she did, her voice was dull and listless. "My visions have stopped."

"When?"

"An hour ago, maybe? I can't see anything. Nothing."

"Maybe it's temporary, like a headache," Bella suggested.

"You don't understand. This has _never_ happened. Every moment of the day I have mundane visions. If someone picks up a pencil, I get a flash of the letter they'll write, or if they pick up the remote control, I'll get an image of what program they're going to watch. And my visions constantly change when people change their minds, make different decisions that put them on another path. I don't even notice them most of the time because I'm so used to it. They're just a part of me. There are a few things that I cannot see, like my own future, but I've never been totally blind before. This is scary for me."

"I know what that feels like," Edward said suddenly. "When I was cut off from my Bella's mind, it was horrible."

Bella snapped her fingers. "What do these two situations have in common?"

They looked at her expectantly.

"Amun! Maybe somehow he ... shorts out your abilities. It was temporary with Edward, so maybe yours will be too."

"You mean like that kid in X-Men? Do you think Amun, like, _absorbs_ our Gifts?"

Bella had no idea what she was talking about. "I don't know if he's doing it intentionally or not, but if he _is_ doing something, the effect isn't permanent. Edward, you recovered in about an hour, right?"

"Yes," he replied. His eyes were soft and compassionate. "You feel lost and alone right now, Alice, because you can no longer feel your angel. But he will go home soon."

Alice blinked, and confusion flickered in her eyes, but when there was a knock on the door, she forgot it entirely. Bella groaned inwardly. She used to think of their room as a quiet escape from the world. She opened it.

"Collin!" Alice cried and then flushed at the enthusiasm which had been evident in her voice.

"Hey, midget," he said. He cast his gaze to Edward and Bella and the little black puppy on the bed and lingered awkwardly in the doorway. "I ... uh ... saw you were ... you know ... upset about something and I ... uh ... wanted to see if you were ... um ... okay."

"Thank you, Collin," Alice said softly.

"Well, I ... you know ..."

Alice smiled. She walked over and took his hand in her own and he stared at their joined hands with an expression akin to wonderment. "Would you ... ah ... like to go for a walk, or something?" he asked.

"I'd love to," Alice replied. She smiled at Edward and Bella and closed the door behind them when she left, the mist that was her guardian angel hovered behind her, unseen, unheard, unfelt. Carlisle returning home had given Emmett and Rose a spurt of hope which had ironically strengthened them, just enough to make their torment linger on.

"She's good for him," Edward said.

"Yes, but I'm not sure he's good for her," Bella replied.

He tilted his head. "Are you sure you're not prejudiced because Jasper likes her?"

"Alice doesn't belong with someone dark," Bella said. "He'd have a lot of changes he would have to make in himself before he could be what she needs, and he told us that he didn't _want_ to change."

"Maybe he would, for love," Edward suggested.

Bella smiled. "Now who's been watching too many movies?"

* * *

><p>When Bella went downstairs to help Lauren cook dinner, she found Jane sitting by herself in the empty kitchen, rolling the ball for Dave to fetch.<p>

It had been hard explaining to him that he wouldn't see Carlisle any more.

"He went home, and it's far away, so he can't come back," Edward said. Dave whined and hid his face between his paws. Edward gently stroked his back. Bella did not need a translation to know what Dave was feeling and she sat down to pet him, too, rubbing that itchy spot beneath his collar.

Since then, he had been offering his ball to anyone who would take it, but most humans would only roll it for him a few times or tossed it so hard that it got lost and Dave had to track it down. In Jane, he hit the jackpot. She would roll it for him until he got tired and then she would let him sleep on her lap.

Bella was amazed at the changes that this one little puppy had wrought in the Gifted. She saw Jenks's badasses laying on the floor to play tug-of-war with Dave and letting him win, at which point he would always carry his rope toy around with him like a boxing champ with a gold belt. She saw the women pet him and while doing so, finding that it was easier to talk to the others about what had happened to them. And the most amazing was the changes in Jane. He had taught her empathy. She cared how this little creature felt, and even more amazing (in Jane's eyes), he seemed to love her back. Jane's anger and hostility seemed to melt away more and more every day, like late spring snows that gave way to emerald grass and flowerbuds.

"No dinner tonight?" Bella asked. She saw Rose out of the corner of her eye and turned, but the image had faded by the time she turned. She wondered if this was where ghost sightings came from, people catching a glimpse of a Fading angel.

"No, we're getting pizza," Jane replied.

"Pizza? Like, delivery?" How would a pizza guy find this place with no driveway or mailbox?

"Amun is bringing it."

Bella closed her eyes. There was no escaping him and it looked like she was going to have to accept him as part of the crew, whether she liked it or not.

"What do you think of him?" Bella asked.

Jane shrugged. "He's okay, I guess. He had a lot of questions about Victoria, about what she did in the center. I couldn't answer most of 'em because she never really talked about her talent or the testing that they did."

Strange subjects to focus on. He'd told Bella that he'd wanted to know about her life and if she'd suffered while she was in the facility, not how the testing went.

"Bella?"

"Yeah?"

Jane's voice was small and soft, as if she expected a harsh rebuff. "Can I stay with you and Edward?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're going to take everybody back to America so they can go home. I really don't want to go. I want to stay with you guys."

"What about your mom and dad? Don't you want to see them?"

Jane dropped the thin cover of nonchalance she had been hiding under. She turned her sad eyes up to Bella. "I never really knew them. They loved me in their own way, I guess, but they were too busy, you know? It felt like we were room mates, not family."

"Jane, I don't know how to be a mom," Bella confessed.

"And I really don't know how to be a kid any more." She gently rolled the ball and Dave scrambled after it. "I guess we can figure it out together. I mean, you're really nice, Bella. You're nice to everyone, even when they don't deserve it, and you help out when anyone needs it, and I've seen the way that people come to you with their problems. That's all mom-stuff right there." Jane rolled the ball again, casting her eyes down to the tile. "And you won't be stuck with me all that long. About five years or so."

"Jane, I'm not worried about being 'stuck' with you. I'm worried about whether I can be what you need."

"I think, maybe, you already are." She rolled the ball a couple more times before speaking again and her voice had once again grown soft and tentative. "I'm sorry about the way I acted in the facility. I feel bad about it now, and I really feel bad about the way I treated Alice. She always seemed so cheerful and happy and it just made me mad, because I was like, _'Here we are, kidnapped and put in this lab and you're like a fuckin' Disney Princess_'. Now I know that she was just trying to be cheerful to keep our spirits up and it worries me that she's too sad to be cheerful any more. She knows things. What if she knows something bad is going to happen?"

"No, Jane, that's not it. I've talked to her about it and it's not because she sees something bad coming. Not at all, I promise you."

Jane smiled. "See? You're being all reassuring and stuff. You got this Mom stuff down pat."

Edward was supportive of the idea when she spoke with him about it later that evening. They had collected a few slices of pizza and absconded back to their room. "Bella, the most important trait of being a mom is love and you have that to spare. You remember what Rose told you about Jane needing love. Look at what Dave has done for her; imagine what more could happen if she had the mother figure she always yearned for."

"Wouldn't that be someone like Esme?" Bella asked. "She's what I think of when someone says 'mother-figure'."

"Bella, Jane is a lot smarter than your realize. She wouldn't have asked you if she wasn't confident that you would be a good mom. And me? I know your heart inside and out and I know that you can do this and we can give Jane the loving, stable home she needs."

"Not until we're done with Aro," Bella said grimly. "Hold on, kid, I'll play June Cleaver after I get done killing and burning." She knew Edward didn't like that cynical, sarcastic voice, but it was sometimes the only way she could express what was eating at her.

"If she knew, don't you think she'd be impressed at what lengths you're willing to go to in order to make her safe? Don't you think she'd be impressed with your courage?"

"I'm scared," Bella blurted. "I'm scared I'm going to lose it again and kill everyone in my path the way I did at the facility."

He was silent for a long moment. "I think you've been hiding from me again."

"Not intentionally. Oh, maybe I am. I don't know any more." She put her piece of pizza on its paper plate, not hungry any longer. "I don't want to be evil," she whispered. "I remember what Jane and Quil told me about how good it felt to use their power and I think I may have experienced something like that when I was over the battlefield. I felt ... I felt like a god, like no one could ever stop me, like I could pull down the moon if I really wanted to."

"And you're afraid that having a small part of you that likes feeling powerful makes you evil?"

Bella didn't know how to answer.

Edward lay down on the bed and held his arms out to her. She curled up in them gratefully, and laid her head against his chest. "I'm glad Jane will be our first baby," he said. "In steering her back to the light, I think you'll begin to see the light that's already around you."


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

..

"Family meeting, people!" Jenks shouted. "Five minutes!"

Breakfast was finished, except for a few stragglers. Bella, Jane and Lauren had made omelets, using the electric skillet and every burner on the stove and now they were washing up, Bella washing the dishes and Jane drying, and Edward putting them away. Well, he _started_ to put them away, anyway, but got distracted exploring the kitchen gadgets in the cabinets, and then Bella lost her dish dryer when Jane sat down beside him and explained what the appliances and equipment did, making up fantastic explanations if she didn't know, making the both of them laugh. It warmed Bella's heart to hear Jane giggle like the little girl she was.

Hovering behind her, Rose cried as she watched. "Thank you," she whispered when Bella came near. Rose was so faint, so insubstantial. Bella's heart ached and tears of her own pooled in her eyes.

"Soon?" Bella asked her. And then she realized she hadn't seen Emmett all day. Yesterday, he'd been so faint Bella could barely make out his features, like a wisp of steam that disappeared in the cool air.

She heard Rose sigh. "Soon."

"Come on, people, gather round," Jenks called.

Bella tossed the sponge in the sink. Edward took her hand in his and playfully grabbed Jane's ponytail to "drag" her into the living room with them. Bella and Jane squeezed together in the spot left on the sofa and Edward stood behind them. Dave hopped up into Jane's lap. He turned around in circles before lying down because it made Jane giggle (and Dave really liked that happy human sound. Petting usually accompanied it.) Amun leaned against one of the glass walls, and every time Bella glanced in his direction, she found his gaze on her, that little smile playing around his lips.

"All right," Jenks said, when everyone was seated. "Everybody here?"

'''Cept for Ben," Forks noted. "He's out putting some sort of antenna on the boat."

"That's okay, he knows what's going on. Anyway, people, pack up your shit because we're heading out tomorrow morning. I want you all down here by seven and if you're not, your ass gets left behind. And don't think you're staying in my cushy digs, either. Cleaning crew is coming in afterwards and they're not terribly _friendly_, if you catch my drift."

He took out a notebook and pen. "Okay, plan is, we hit the East Coast of mainland U. S. of A. first. Who wants to jump ship on that side?"

Hands were raised. Jenks wrote down names. "Not bad. About half of you. Okay, here comes the hard part." Jenks went to the closet and pulled out one of the duffel bags an unzipped it. He reached inside, ripped the plastic wrap and started passing out bundled cash.

"Hard for me, that is, giving away all my lovely money. Pass this shit around. Everybody gets two bundles. In case your math skills are shitty, that's twenty thousand bucks. After we dump you off at your chosen destination, you're going to have to lay low for a while. I'm no sure how long, but I'm estimating a week. Split up, get to another city and hole the fuck up in a hotel room, and for God's sake, don't call anyone."

He tossed the mostly-empty duffel bag back unto the closet. "_Anyone_, got it? Not your Auntie Claire in Sheboygan who you know can keep a secret, not your booty call, not your fuckin' voicemail. _No one_. If you do, you'll get your ass caught and I don't know what they'll do to you once they've got you back. Likely just blow your goddam head off because, coincidentally enough, their fuckin' facility got blown all to hell. And don't expect Bella to come and fuckin' rescue any of you cocksuckers again, 'cause that shit ain't happening. You lay low and you _wait._"

His eyes swept around the room, studying each face to make sure that people were taking him seriously.

"You're each going to get a cell phone. You do not use this cell phone for _any reason_. When I give you that phone, it's gonna have a piece of paper taped to it with a word written inside. When it's safe for you to go home, you're gonna get a call on that cell phone and the person on the other end is going to say that one word. That is all. You toss that fucker out the window and go. If you don't get that call within a week's time, you're on your fuckin' own, and I'm sorry as hell about that. Any questions?"

"We don't have ID," Quil said. "How are we going to get through customs?"

Jenks laughed at him. "Any _serious_ questions?"

"How long will we be at sea?" Esme asked.

"It's about two thousand miles from here to the Panama Canal. We're going to be traveling about about thirty miles per hour. You do the math. Oh, and I'll have to stop and gas up a few times."

Esme sat back, blinking. At least three days until they reached Panama.

"We're going to have to make pit stops. I've arranged some along the way, but they're not going to be real frequent. We've got a head for you to use, but there's no galley."

"What do you mean, '_head'_?" Amanda asked.

"A shitter," Forks said, helpfully. "We've got a shitter but no kitchen."

"And no nice, comfy beds for you, either. I'm gonna have Bella get us some of those fuckin' air mattress things if she's got time to go shopping tonight, but other than that, you're going to have to just curl up in the fuckin' seats. Sorry, people, but it's the best I can do. So grab some fuckin' books, some board games or whatever to keep yourself occupied because it's gonna be a long goddam week."

"Or we could take my jet," Amun said.

You could have heard an eyelash drop.

"Your jet," Jenks repeated.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?" Collin demanded.

Amun shrugged. "You didn't ask."

"I think we should take the boat," Bella said. "Stick with the original plan." She did not say that it was because she didn't want to be beholden to Amun, but it was probably obvious.

"Let's take a vote," Amun suggested. "All those in favor of the slow boat to China-"

"Fuck you, this ain't a democracy," Jenks said. "I've spent the last four fuckin' days putting this shit together-"

"I just thought using my jet would save you time. And money. And a lot of discomfort. But if you want to be stubborn about it ..."

"I say we take the plane!" Quil said. "God, why not? I don't think any of us are happy about the idea of living on your get-away boat for more than a week."

"It does seem easier," Esme said tentatively.

Jenks threw his notebook on the coffee table and tossed up his hands. "Fine. If that's what everyone wants. Bella?"

She couldn't come up with a legitimate reason to refuse and everyone looked so eager and relieved to avoid the discomforts of more than a week at sea. "If that's what everyone wants," she repeated.

"We can still leave in the morning," Amun said. "I'll make a few calls and have some cars sent out here to pick up everyone to take them to the airport."

"What about Homeland Security?" Quil asked.

Now, it was Amun's turn to laugh at him.

"I wouldn't do that unless you want your ass to be set on fire," Bella warned. Quil's face was red and he looked about an inch away from losing his temper.

Collin spoke up. "He's got a valid point. How are we going to fly in without someone wanting to check out the mystery jet from overseas? Homeland Security gets a little testy about those sorts of things."

"You've heard of the Stealth Bomber, haven't you?" Amun asked.

"Yes."

He shrugged. "Same technology. They won't even see us coming."

It seemed _too_ easy. Bella shifted uncomfortably and Edward put his hands on her shoulders. He leaned down to murmur in her ear. "If you don't want to go with them, we don't have to. We can make our own way there."

Bella shook her head. She would stay with the group. They could need her for protection.

Jenks stood. "So, I guess we're flying. Someone go get Ben's ass so he doesn't waste his time setting up the new communications system. What time, Amun?"

"We can stick to the same schedule, departing at seven," Amun replied.

"All right. Meeting adjourned."

"Jenks, can I talk to you for a minute?" Bella asked. "In your office?"

"Sure, Bella, be up in a sec," Jenks replied.

Bella and Edward rose from the sofa and went up the staircase. They had to wait outside of Jenks's office because they didn't know the entry code, which Jenks refused to divulge to anyone. As promised, Jenks was only a couple of minutes behind them and he opened the door, gesturing for them to enter first. Bella took one of the chairs in front of his desk and Edward took his preferred spot, standing behind her.

"What did you need?" Jenks asked.

"I don't trust Amun," Bella said bluntly.

Jenks nodded. "That's probably smart."

"You don't trust him either, but you're telling all of us it's okay to climb onto his plane?"

Jenks waved a hand. "I'm not worried he's going to turn us in or sell us all to North Korea's program. In that respect, you can trust him."

"Did he really take down another facility?"

Jenks scratched his ear. "All I can tell you is what I heard, and that isn't much. The grapevine says he did it. 'Course, everyone thinks it was a weather research station or some shit like that and so they tell the story like it's an amusing cautionary tale. You know, like: _Don't piss off Amun, 'cause he'll hunt your ass down even if you're in Iceland and burn the place to the ground."_

"Is that really why he did it, because someone made him angry?"

Jenks shrugged. "That, I don't know."

"He told me it was for money."

_"That,_ I can assure you is a lie. He's richer than God and that's just from his legitimate businesses. He doesn't do anything for money. I don't think he ever did. Unlike most people, he came into the game already loaded."

"From Egypt? Were his parents rich?"

"That I don't know. If he told you he came from Egypt, that makes you the most knowledgeable person alive in regards to his origins. No one else knows _anything_ about this guy, and trust me, it's not for lack of trying. Other ... organizations have tried to track down his family for, you know, _persuasion_ purposes, but they were never able to find anything, and these guys make the CIA look like Inspector Gadget."

"Maybe he's not human," Bella said.

"What, like a vampire or something? Bella, he eats food and I've seen him in sunshine before."

"Maybe he's ... like Edward."

"An angel?" Jenks laughed.

"No, like his opposite: a demon."

"Wouldn't you know?" Jenks asked Edward.

Edward shook his head. "I've never seen one, and I don't have any sort of supernatural detection powers. All I know about a person is the same things that you could gather from looking into their eyes, reading their body language, that sort of thing."

"But there really are demons?" Jenks asked.

"Yes, but they're not the way most people think, spreading mischief and trying to tempt people into sin. They don't belong to a person the way angels do, like I belong to my Bella. But, like angels, they work to keep people on the right course to make sure events unfold the way they're supposed to."

"Are they evil?"

Edward considered. "They're not created the way angels are. They're the souls of the damned, so, yes, in that way, they are evil."

"So, if Amun really was a demon, he'd be working for the devil to make sure fate unrolled properly?"

"Something like that."

"Why would the devil_ care_?" Bella asked.

"It's not like you think, Bella. God and the devil are not moral opposites the way most human religious literature portray them. In the beginning, when humans first evolved, they were simple, innocent creatures. God wanted them to stay that way, but the devil wanted to 'nudge' humans toward sentience. Crossing over into self-awareness would make them eternal beings, give them souls, and they would understand good and evil. God agreed, but only on the condition that the devil would take the souls those who chose the dark path, to accept the consequences, in other words. They created Heaven as a place for the souls of light and then the angels, to guide and protect those souls. Then they created hell to house the souls of the dark ones. Hell is awful only because of the people in it."

Bella and Jenks were both staring at him, their mouths agape.

"So, even if Amun is a demon, he wouldn't have been sent here to try to tempt us or to cause mayhem. He would be here to make sure that everything happens as it's supposed to happen."

"From what Jenks said, it sounds like he's been here a long time."

"At least fifteen years," Jenks added.

"They don't go back," Edward said. "They're not tied to a person that they follow back at the end of that person's mortal life. If he really is a demon, he could have been here for centuries."

"How would we know?" Bella asked. "I doubt if he'd just admit to it if we asked him. Is there some kind of ... test, or something?"

"We could throw holy water on him and see if he melts," Jenks suggested.

"He's not the Wicked Witch of the West, Jenks."

"Would he have any powers?" Jenks asked. "Like that flaming sword thing that you do? Can he fly?"

"No wings," Edward pointed out. "As for powers, I don't know. He may even have been Gifted as a human."

"So, we're back to where we started," Bella said, with a frustrated groan. "Not knowing anything about him, or what he can do."

"If he _is_ a demon, it sounds like he'd be _safer_ than a human," Jenks said. "Humans can cause all kinds of mayhem and do evil shit just for the hell of it."

"Demons aren't _prevented_ from doing evil," Edward said. "They just can't interfere with fate."

"Would he have been sent to destroy that facility?" Bella asked Edward. "You were sent to make sure I completed my task, but you weren't told what it was. Would he know? Would he be given tasks _himself_, not just to guide humans into doing what they're supposed to do?"

Edward raked a hand through his hair. "I don't know. I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you more."

Something occurred to her. "Edward, does he know what you are?"

"Yet another thing that I don't know," Edward said. "I don't know if demons have the ability to recognize angels or not."

"It sucks that you don't know more about this supernatural shit," Jenks said. "Can't you, um, call God or something?"

Edward was amused. "No, sorry. I can leave messages in my prayers, but that's the extent of the connection I have with the Highest One."

"Well, whatever Amun is, I don't trust him," Bella said.

"I don't think he'd do anything to hurt you," Jenks told her. "He likes you, Bella. I've never seen him pay so much attention to a woman."

"Not interested," Bella said succinctly.

"Well, you know, it might not hurt to ... uh ... let him think ..."

"Jesus Christ, Jenks! I'm not going to lead the guy on!"

"Oh, don't act so shocked," Jenks said scathingly. "Girls do it all the time to get shit from guys."

"Well, I don't," Bella snapped.

"Fine, just don't be a bitch to him."

Edward growled, "My Bella is not a_ bitch_."

Jenks recanted hastily. "I wasn't saying she was, man. I meant that she shouldn't be ... uh ... impolite."

"Don't worry. I won't be mean to him. Just, please, don't put me in any situations that could get uncomfortable for me, okay?"

"I'll try," Jenks promised.

Bella rose to her feet. "Try _really_ hard," she said.

* * *

><p>In the morning, the living room was filled with yawning, sleepy people, each carrying their personal items in a plastic shopping bag (Bella hadn't thought to buy them totes) and one of Jenks's black duffel bags. Lauren had made an urn of coffee and nearly everyone had a Styrofoam cup of it. Jane had started to pour herself a cup but Edward had stopped her. "You should get a glass of milk or juice," he said.<p>

"Aw, come on, Edward. I like coffee," Jane whined.

"Juice or milk," he repeated firmly. Jane grumbled but she headed to the refrigerator and filled her cup with orange juice.

"I see the cars," Jenks said, stepping away from the windows. "Everyone ready to go? Got all your shit? Where's that little fuckin' dog?"

"I've got him," Jane called, scooping Dave into her arms.

He let down the staircase and the room began to empty. Bella looked around one last time. She was a little bit sentimental in that way, when leaving a place she knew she'd never return to. She'd liked living here. Her eyes lingered on the spot where Carlisle had left. (She had a feeling she wasn't going to have a goodbye with Emmett or Rose.) She ran her fingers over the back of the sofa and sighed.

"This is the kind of house we'll build," Edward told her.

Bella smiled at him and linked her arm through his. "On our tropical island where you don't have to remember to wear pants."

He grinned at her and she tried to smooth down his riotous hair, an exercise in futility. They went down the stairs together.

Amun was waiting at the bottom with Jenks, who hit the button to close the stairs after they reached the bottom. "Good morning, Bella."

"Good morning, Amun," Bella repeated politely.

His eyes flicked over her. "You look nice. That color suits you."

She was wearing a dark blue shirt that Edward had bought for her because he said the same thing. "Thank you," she said coolly. And, of course, it was his car that they ended up riding in to the airport. Edward sat between them, and Jenks took the front passenger seat.

"I brought you another copy of the dossier," Amun said, leaning over Edward to hand her the file.

"Thanks. I'll read it on the plane." Bella tucked it under her arm.

"Have you ever flown before?"

Bella hid a smile. "Not on a plane." She watched Amun out of the corner of her eye to see what his reaction would be to that, but he remained impassive, unreadable.

"I think you'll like my plane," he said. "Much more comfortable than a commercial flight. There's even a bedroom if you'd like to take a nap."

"Ooh, lovely. Perhaps Edward and I can join the Mile High Club."

That got a reaction. He scowled and sat back.

Edward gave her hand a little squeeze. "What's the Mile High Club?" She could tell from the twinkle in his eye that he had read the answer in her mind, but Bella cheerfully explained it while Amun stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched.

Amun's plane was huge, much larger than a commercial jet. It was painted a dull gray, part of the stealth system, a paint that absorbed radar waves instead of reflecting them. A set of stairs had been wheeled up to the door and the Gifted were already climbing aboard. Those in Jenks's crew waited at the bottom of the stairs for their leader, a small gesture of loyalty that Bella could see touched Jenks.

They climbed the stairs, which Edward did not like because they could not go up side by side as he preferred. His instinct was to go first, to protect Bella from any unknown dangers in a new location, but he did not like Amun following her. Bella finally made the decision, heading up the stairs first, with Edward following. She heard Amun chuckle as if he had enjoyed Edward's obvious conflict.

The interior of the plane looked like a luxurious, well-decorated living room. Plush cream-colored leather sofas were scattered around the cabin with little wood end tables and lamps perched atop. The only difference from an ordinary room was that they were bolted to the floor, which was covered with lush Oriental rugs. Bulkhead walls with little hallways on either side divided the space into multiple rooms, but still had a comfortable flow.

There was a gorgeous painting on the bulkead wall of a bridge over a stream. Bella stopped to admire it for a moment.

"Do you like it?" Amun asked. "Monet."

Bella couldn't help but be impressed. "Really? A real Monet?"

Amun smiled, his teeth brilliantly white against his honey skin. "Really real."

"Bella, we're blocking the aisle," Edward said.

"Oh!" Bella stepped back and took a seat on one of the sofas. Edward settled beside her. Jane bounded over, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Bella, you need to _see_ this place. The bathroom actually has a shower and there's a great big bed in the back!"

"After takeoff," Bella said. "I'll come exploring with you. Take a seat and put on your belt."

"What about Dave?" Jane asked. She put the puppy beside her and dubiously examined the seat belt.

"I'll hold him," Edward said. "It will be just as safe as a seat belt."

Dave jumped over to Edward's lap and stood to lick his chin respectfully. Bella leaned over to lay her head on Edward's shoulder and got a lick herself before Dave settled down into the crook of Edward's arm. The seat was as soft as a cloud and she was so comfortable. Edward wrapped his wing over her, and Bella snuggled into the warmth and safety of her angel's embrace. So warm. So comfortable ...

_Bella._

_Bella._

_Bella sat up, looking around in confusion. She lay on a white canopy bed with gauze streamers that floated in the breeze. She could see rolling fields through the open vine-covered archways on the wall. It looked like she'd fallen into a painting in an Italian restaurant._ _Bella giggled at the thought. She was dreaming, she realized, but such a strange dream._

_Edward came into the room, his bare chest gleaming in the sunlight that streamed through the windows. His wings were invisible; he appeared as a simple human man. "Maybe you're supposed to be an olive farmer, and I'm your wife," Bella said._

_"Works for me," Edward replied. He came over and knelt on the bed beside her and Bella twined her arms around his neck. His hands softly glided down her sides before sliding around to her back and down to cup her backside. _

_"Oh, Bella," he whispered. His kisses were soft and warm against her face before they moved down to her throat and then to the vee of skin revealed by the neckline of her dress. Bella moaned and arched against him. "Edward, Edward, I love you." _

_His hands slid down to her thighs and he pushed up her skirt, his hands hot against her bare flesh. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, and his hot black gaze bored into her very soul._

_Black?_

_His eyes were black?_

_Bella tried to pull away. Something wasn't right._

_He smiled at her and pulled her hips down to the edge of the bed. Bella looked down and saw his honey-colored hands contrasting with her pale skin._

_Honey?_

_She tried to speak but no words would come out. His hair was darkening as she watched to coal black, the same color as his eyes._

_She tried to scream._

_Button by button, he opened the front of her dress. His face was changing, the jaw widening, the forehead shortening and now it was Amun's face that bent to her body. She was paralyzed, frozen._

_Edward! Edward! She screamed in her mind.  
><em>

_The bedroom wall exploded and Edward charged through, his flaming sword in hand. He slashed at Amun and-_

Bella woke, panting, terrified. Edward had her in his arms but was it really him? Bella struggled.

"Shh, baby, I've got you," Edward said, and warm relief surged through her. It was him, his warmth, his scent, his voice, his wings' soft feathers against her arm. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I couldn't get in."

Bella looked around. Jane was sleeping on the sofa across from them, Dave curled up in front of her. She saw Esme reading on another sofa toward the front of the plane and Jenks was seated with Collin in front of the massive television on the wall, playing a video game. The normalcy of it slowed her racing heartbeat. She took deep breaths.

And then she saw Amun. He was leaning against the bulkhead, his eyes gleaming at her, that wicked little smile tugging at his lips. Bella closed her eyes and burrowed into Edward's chest.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

..

Dave could tell by her body language that the winged-man's female was upset and he had tried various tactics to distract her. Maybe it was because it was so loud in this strange, moving house. He brought her his ball but she made a series of vocalizations and put it on the seat beside her. He had a little more success with his rope toy, which she tugged with her paw, while he clamped down with his teeth and braced his legs against the seat. Dave even let her win a few times, but it didn't make her happy. He finally settled down to grooming her, licking her paws (he loved the taste of peopleskin, so deliciously salty) and she petted him, which seemed to soothe her a little.

The young female was staring at a chunk of paper, one of those strange human activities that Dave didn't understand. Every so often, she would turn over the next piece of paper and stare at the other side. They'd do this for long periods of time. The winged-man had told Dave that the young female was their puppy, which confused Dave because he didn't remember the winged-man's female carrying young, but Dave accepted her as part of their pack. He liked her. She gave him peoplefood. He just wished she spent less time staring at paper and more time playing.

The baddog that had a black aura was still staring in their direction, staring at the winged-man's female, to be more accurate. He didn't know what sort of creature the baddog was but he knew, instinctively, that he was a threat to Dave's pack. He made the hair on the back of Dave's neck stand up. Dave considered growling at him but decided against it. He didn't want the baddog to think it was a pack challenge. He thought the winged-man was strong, but he didn't know what the baddog would do. He might hurt their females and their first duty was to make sure they were protected.

Dave hopped from the female's lap over to the winged-man, but he didn't want to talk. He picked up Dave and handed him to the young female, who petted him while staring at her chunk of paper. Dave let out a huff of breath and laid his head on his paws. He watched the baddog carefully.

* * *

><p>They landed at a private airstrip in Tennessee, which was one of the few private airports east of the Mississippi that had a long enough runway to accommodate Amun's jet.<p>

Take-offs and landings were the worst part of flying, in Bella's opinion. She cringed at every bump and every shudder. The nose touched down and she breathed a sigh of relief, only to tense up again at the dull roar of the brakes.

Jenks used the plane's intercom system so that everyone could hear. "People, we've gotta refuel, so even if you weren't planning on getting off on this side of the country, you can get out and stretch your legs. Don't go far, though. We'll be taking off again in about an hour."

"Let's go for a walk," Bella said to Edward. She'd been longing to speak with Edward since her frightening dream, but couldn't say anything with Amun's eyes on them for the entire flight. She'd kept her line of sight studiously away from him, but she could _feel_ him looking at her, like his gaze had weight, like thousands of tiny needles prickling her skin.

They waited until everyone else had filed off the plane before rising to their feet. Edward stretched, arching his back and extending his wings to their widest and gave both of them a little flap to smooth the feathers that had been rumpled from being pressed against the back of the seat for hours. Bella's mouth went dry as his t-shirt pulled away from his jeans and exposed his muscled abdomen. Edward grinned at her, pleased as always when she admired him.

She and Edward clomped down the staircase that was rolled up to the plane's door. But they weren't getting away from Amun that easily. He waited at the foot of the stairs. "Hello, Bella," he purred. "Did you sleep well?"

Bella didn't answer him. They walked by as if he didn't exist. Bella hear Amun chuckle and it raised her hackles. She put her hand in Edward's, who traced the shape of a heart on the back of it with a fingertip. Bella smiled at him. It was amazing how much comfort could be derived from such a small gesture.

Jane had already disembarked and was waiting for them on the tarmac. "I'm going to walk Dave," she said, nodding toward a patch of grass at the side of the runway.

"All right," Bella said. "Stay with Alice or Esme after you're done, okay?"

Jane rolled her eyes but said that she would. Bella gave Dave a pat and followed Edward.

About a hundred yards away was a large airplane hangar with a arched roof. It had a huge door on the front, wide enough to accommodate a plane's wings, and it was painted a light tan color. Bella thought it looked like a loaf of bread. Edward led her around back where no one could see them. He scooped Bella up into his arms and jumped, thrashing his wings hard to get them airborne. Bella remained silent and buried her face in his neck.

He didn't fly for long before he chose a spot. He banked and landed in a small clearing beyond a patch of trees. It was pretty enough to be a scene from a painting. Long, soft grass scattered with wildflowers waved in the gentle breeze. Bella took a seat on a large rock near the little brook that neatly bisected the meadow into two, almost perfectly even halves.

"What happened on the plane?" she asked. "You told me you _'couldn't get in';_ what did you mean by that?"

"It was awful," Edward said. He paced, and ran his hands through his hair repeatedly in agitation. "As soon as you fell asleep, your mind severed from mine. I thought you were blocking me in some way, because that's what it felt like: a shield that kept me out."

He stopped his pacing and knelt in front of her. "You talk in your sleep, you know. At first, I thought you must be having a pleasant dream. You said my name and smiled and then you said something about olives. I was still searching for a way in, and when you started to toss and moan in fear, you said _'Black eyes_' ..." Edward broke off. His wings drooped and the feathers on the tips dragged in the dust. "I threw myself with all my power against the barrier and it broke."

"He was you," Bella said. "I mean, he _looked_ like you. I didn't know it was Amun until his eyes changed." She couldn't tell him the rest. She couldn't tell him how Amun had touched her. She felt ashamed of it, as if she had cheated on Edward. "I couldn't move, couldn't even scream. Was it just a dream? Was I somehow using my powers against myself, against you?"

"I'd almost prefer that to the alternative," he said grimly. "But I've been in your dreams all of your life, Bella, and this didn't feel like one of yours."

"I'm so sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"I ... let him touch me when I thought he was you." Bella couldn't look at Edward, couldn't bear to see hurt or anger or even condemnation in his eyes. She picked a piece of grass and ran it between her fingers.

He put his hands over hers, stilling her nervous movements. "Bella, you did nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Even if it were just an ordinary dream and even if you had been with him willingly, you still wouldn't have done anything wrong. Dreams are just the mind's way of exploring the infinite possibilities and impossibilities of life. Do you remember that dream where you robbed a bank and went on a shopping spree at the bookstore? Does that dream mean you really want to rob a bank?"

"No, I guess not. Oh, God, Edward, what are we going to do? I don't want him with us."

"Unfortunately, I think we may need him," Edward said. "He knows what he's doing. Jenks trusts him as far as the mission goes, and I trust Jenks's judgement. And I think Jenks is right that Amun wouldn't do anything to hurt you, though his definition of 'harm' might be somewhat different from ours."

"What about you? I wouldn't be able to stand that, if something happened to you."

"I'm not mortal, Bella," Edward reminded her.

"But what if demons can hurt or even kill angels? We don't know what they're capable of."

"And we don't know that he's a demon," Edward pointed out. He pulled her from the rock into his arms and wrapped his wings around her. Bella laid her head on his chest and silent tears oozed from her eyes.

"Please, don't cry," Edward said. "Please, Bella." He pressed kisses to her face between the words. He took her hand in his and laid it on his chest. "Do you feel that? It beats for you, alone. You are here, in my heart, and nothing will ever take you out of it. In here, Bella, you are safe. Nothing, _nothing_, will ever stop me from loving you."

His kisses led from her damp eyes down to her lips. Bella kissed him back, fervently and he gently laid her down on the grass. His wings formed a tent around her, sheltering her. She moaned softly as he unbuttoned her shirt, kissing down her throat to the flesh he revealed bit by bit.

"Ooh, a clasp in front," he said when he reached her bra. He unhooked it with a flick of his thumb and sucked her nipple into his mouth. Bella threaded her fingers through his hair and only dimly realized that her body was moving restlessly beneath his. Her breaths came in gasps. She felt his hand unsnap her jeans and she lifted her hips to assist him, then helped him pull his own down. He pulled impatiently at their clothes, flinging them aside, as if he were starving for the feel of her skin against his own.

She stroked him and his hot breath panting against her ear gave her a sweet shiver. She positioned him at her entrance, but he wasn't through with her yet. His mouth pointed out new erogenous zones on her body as he kissed and licked his way down. He lifted one of her legs over his shoulder and a strangled cry left her when his tongue traced her soft folds.

Was it love that made their passion so sweet? Or that he could read her mind and knew exactly what she needed to drive her mindless with pleasure? Maybe it was both. All she knew was that nothing could ever compare to the sheer joy of his flesh against hers and every time when that delicious moment came, when he joined his body with hers, she would gaze into his eyes and feast on the love she found in them. And when they lay tangled together, spent and exhausted, she always sent up a silent, inarticulate prayer of thanks.

They reluctantly rose from their bed of crushed grass and dressed, laughing when they discovered that Edward had tossed one of his shoes into the creek in his frenzy to strip. She put her arms around his neck and he held her close as he launched them upward. They landed behind the hangar and walked back to the plane hand in hand, giggling at the way his shoe squished and squirted with every step.

Their group was mingled around the bottom of the stairs. Some were giving hugs, saying their goodbyes to one another. As Bella approached, she was mobbed by those who intended to leave, thanked repeatedly for the rescue and hugged multiple times. Alice, Esme, and Quil hung back with the crew and Jasper. Bella was pleased to see Jasper and Alice chatting and as she watched, Alice blushed and cast him a flirtatious smile. _There might just be hope for those two yet_, Bella thought.

Amun was at the base of the stairs as if he hadn't moved the entire time they'd been away. He took in their disarray, the grass in Bella's hair. "Your shirt is misbuttoned," he commented.

Bella flushed but said nothing. She took the stairs two at a time. Behind her, she heard him say to Edward, "I'm sure you're grateful now that I got her so worked up."

The only warning he got was a soft growl from Edward before his fist connected with Amun's jaw. There was a collective gasp and Esme gave a little scream. Belle ran back down the stairs.

Amun staggered back, his hand cupping his jaw. He grinned. "I was hoping you'd do that." He swung at Edward, who blocked it while sending in a punch of his own that caught Amun in the solar plexus. Amun doubled over with a grunt and charged froward and rammed Edward in the stomach with his shoulder. Both of them crashed down onto the tarmac, Amun on top of Edward.

Bella took a step forward but Jenks grabbed her arm. "Don't you dare," he said. "It's their fight. You stay the fuck out of it." He raised his voice to be heard by everyone. "I got ten g's on the angel," Jenks called. "Who wants a piece of it?"

"I'll take that action," Collin said. "Amun fights dirty."

Edward snarled and threw a punch straight forward, and it connected with Amun's mouth and nose with an audible crunch. He landed on his back and Edward pounced, but Amun was ready for him. He thrust his legs out, catching Edward in the stomach and sending him flying over Amun's head. He landed on his back with a thud. A puff of loose feathers were tossed into the air and sea-sawed down around him.

The crowd gasped again, edging backwards, forming a large semi-circle around the two fighters without realizing it. Bella cried out, pulling against Jenks's restraining hand. Edward cast her a quick look to make sure she was safe.

Amun flipped himself to his feet with astonishing grace and charged at Edward. He sent a brutal kick in Edward's direction, but Edward rolled swiftly and grabbed Amun's leg. With a hard twist, Amun was back on the pavement, face-down. He swung with his free leg and caught Edward across the side of the head. Edward rammed his elbow down into Amun's gut, knocking the wind out of him and then Edward was on top of him, hammering at Amun's face with his fists. Blood flew.

Jenks released Bella and stepped forward himself. He crouched down beside Amun. "Edward."

Edward landed two more punches. "Yes?"

"I think you won."

"Yes." _Punch. _"I believe ..." _Punch_. "I did." _Punch._

"You gonna stop before he's dead?" Jenks asked casually.

Edward sat back, breathing hard. He ducked his face toward his shoulder and wiped his face on his sleeve, and then his hands on the legs of his jeans, leaving bloody streaks. He stood over his vanquished opponent, the avenging angel triumphant.

Amun's face was a swollen and bloody mess. He let out a groan and coughed up a spurt of blood. Jenks looked down at him and shrugged. "I told you not to piss him off."

* * *

><p><em>Well, that answers one question<em>, Bella thought as Amun staggered onto the plane. He wasn't human. No human would be ambulatory after a beating like that. Amun limped and swayed his way down the aisle back to his bedroom in the tail of the plane. He did not so much as glance in Edward and Bella's direction as he passed.

Jane watched him pass, and gave Edward an impressed look. "You kicked his _ass_," she said in tones of wonderment.

"Jane! Language," Bella reproved.

"Sorry ... It's just ... Wow. I mean, Edward, you always seemed so gentle and sweet and sh- stuff. I didn't know you could fight like that."

Bella had Edward's swollen knuckles wrapped in cool, damp towels despite his insistence he'd be fine in a few hours. "You scared ten years off my life," she said.

"There was no need to be afraid," Edward replied.

"I told you I didn't want to see you get hurt because of me!" Bella scolded. "What if it had been you all bloody and battered at the end of it?"

"But it wasn't," Edward said.

"It could have been," Bella retorted.

Edward gave her a wry smile. "Thanks for the vote of confidence regarding my combat skills."

Bella flushed. "I didn't mean ..."

His smile turned to one of tenderness. "I know, love. I was merely teasing. But at least we learned how strong he is."

"If he'd been a human, he'd be dead."

"If he'd been a human, I wouldn't have beaten him so badly."

"What is he?" Jane asked.

Bella and Edward froze. They'd both forgotten she was still listening. The crew knew Edward's secret and some of the Gifted as well, but Bella didn't know if Jane had been told. Her next sentence answered that question:

"Is he an angel like you?"

Edward tilted his head. "Who told you that?"

Jane shrugged. "I overhear things. Everyone knows."

Edward rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "We're not sure what he is, to tell you the truth."

Jane nodded. "I'll keep my ears open and let you know if I hear anything about him that might be useful."

Jenks's voice came over the intercom. "We're ready for takeoff. Put on your belts. If the cabin suddenly depressurizes, oxygen masks will drop. Put one of them fuckers on, 'cause oxygen will get you higher than a fuckin' kite, believe it or not. If you're flying with a kid ... well, Jane is the only kid on here and if she's not smart enough at thirteen to put her own fuckin' mask on, we'll just chalk it up to Darwin in action. In case of a water landing, which is really fuckin' unlikely, your seat partner can be used as a flotation device. If there's any other kind of crash, carefully place your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye. All right, Mission Control, we are go for liftoff."

Bella heard the engines throttle up and the plane began to creep forward. She didn't like flying in an airplane, she decided. She hid her face against Edward's shoulder. "Don't worry," Edward told her. "If there's a problem with the plane, I'll simply open one of the exit doors and fly us to safety. You hold onto Jane. Jane you hold onto Dave. And I'll hold onto you, Bella."

Bella giggled. "I'm glad you have it all worked out. But what about Jasper and Esme and Alice and all the others?"

"They'll just have to hope their seat partner is a buoyant person."

The nose of the plane lifted and then the vibration of the wheels on the tarmac stopped. Bella whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut. "We'll be fine," Edward assured her. "Just relax, Bella."

She took hold of his wing and pulled it around herself, hiding in her safe, white world. She didn't mean to fall asleep. She didn't think that she would relax enough for that to happen, but suddenly, she wasn't on the plane any longer.

_It was a gazebo, octagon-shaped, a wrought iron frame with glass walls._

"_Hello, Bella."_

_She whirled and saw Amun seated on a wrought iron bench behind her. He wore a suit and his face was unmarred. Bella backed away from him looking for a door. One of these panels had to open but she saw no sign of hinges or a handle.  
><em>

_"I just want to talk to you for a minute," Amun said._

_"Are you doing this to me?" Bella demanded. "These aren't my dreams. You're putting them in my head somehow, aren't you?"_

_Amun nodded. "Among my many talents."_

_"Stop it," Bella snapped. "You have no right to force yourself into my mind like this." She could see Edward. He was outside the gazebo, circling it, looking for a door, a vulnerability, a way inside. His eyes were frantic. Bella waved to him, but she didn't think he could see her._

_"Just listen to me for a moment and then I'll let you go and I won't come to you like this again," Amun said._

_As if she had a choice. She spun to face him. "What?"_

_"I like you, Bella," he said. "I think you know that already, but it deserves to be said. You're everything I've ever admired in a woman: smart, strong, loyal, and ironically, those very characteristics are what makes you resistant to me."_

_"Take the hint," Bella told him._

_He smiled slightly. "I can't. I can't walk away from this. Not without trying. I'd regret it for the rest of my existence."_

_He didn't say "life." "What are you?"_

_He grinned. "A man of wealth and taste," he said._

_Bella backed up. "Sorry, not feeling much sympathy for the devil, here."_

_"I'm not the devil." He tilted his head. "It was a little joke."_

_"Yeah, ha ha. Are you done?"_

_He sighed. "You're not making this easy."_

_"You're welcome to quit at any time."_

_"Would you?" he asked. "If Edward was with someone else, would you simply walk away?"_

_She thought about it and her innate honesty made her say, "No, probably not. But I don't just 'like' Edward; I love him."_

_Amun snorted. "Sure. And that has nothing to do with a human's natural attachment to their guardian angel."_

_Well, there was another question answered: he knew what Edward was. She wondered how long this fucker had been prowling around in her head. Long enough to find her weakest points, her self-doubts and insecurities, that was certain. She used what Edward had told her that evening in their apartment before she had given herself, body and soul, to him. "It doesn't matter how it came about. All that matters is how I feel now and I love that man with every particle of my being. Nothing will ever change that. I'm sorry, Amun, but I belong to Edward, mind, body, heart and soul."_

_"You're attracted to me," Amun said. "I can tell."_

_Bella shrugged. "I'm a healthy, heterosexual female and you're a handsome man. We all can feel momentary attraction to someone. It doesn't mean anything."_

_"If you gave it time, it could grow into something more."_

_"We'll never know," Bella said. "Let me out of here, Amun. Now."_

_"I'm not giving up," he warned._

_"Let me go."_

_Edward slammed through the glass wall and time lurched to a stop. The fragments of glass hung in the air and-_

"Bella!"

She sat up with a gasp.

"I'll kill him," Edward swore. He stood.

Bella clung to him. "Wait." She replayed the dream in her mind for him to see. His jaw tightened, but he sat down again.

"Will he keep his promise?" he asked.

"I don't know."

Edward lifted her off her seat and into his arms. He squeezed hr tightly, almost too tightly, but she didn't complain. She was squeezing him back just as hard as if their embrace could ward off any separation.

..

* * *

><p>AN: Per a reader's suggestion, I added a link on my profile page to an article I wrote about my writing process for Raum's Writing Lab.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

..

The plane landed in Minnesota, at another private airstrip. A line of limousines waited on the tarmac, each with a dark-suited driver wearing sunglasses, waiting beside the passenger door. They all looked like they'd been poured from the same mold.

Bella peering out the window asked Edward, "Do you think he buys 'em in sets?"

Amun made his way up the aisle, his gait a little stiff, but except for a few small cuts on his face and a split lip, there was no evidence of the fight.

"Are you planning to get off the plane?" he asked Bella. Most of the others had already filed off and were milling around the base of the stairs.

"We bring up the rear of the group," Bella said.

"Well, I'm the last," Amun replied. "Come on."

Bella rose to her feet and followed Edward. She grasped his hand and threaded her fingers through his. He pulled it up and kissed it. Bella saw Amun's eyes narrow, but he said nothing. When he reached the base of the stairs, he spoke to the group at large: "Those of you who will be leaving us, please head to the cars in the back. They will take you to various locations where you can hole up until you're notified."

"Everyone still got their phone?" Jenks asked. Heads nodded. "Good."

When the goodbyes had been said and the hugs have been given, the facility residents who remained were Alice, Esme, Quil and Jane.

"Esme, are you sure you want to join us for this?" Bella asked.

"Someone may get hurt," Esme said. "You need me."

Bella nodded. "Thank you. Quil?"

"I may get a chance to set some shit on fire," he responded in a casual tone. "I can't pass up that opportunity"

"Alice?"

Alice lifted her chin. "I know I'm not much good without my visions, but they may come back." Jasper patted her on the shoulder.

"They will come back," he assured her. "There's a reason why you're not supposed to see the future right now. We don't know why that is yet, but it will become clear in hindsight, I'm sure."

Alice gave him a grateful smile.

"I've had my secretary make us reservations at a hotel, where we'll be staying for a few days until we have our strategy worked out."

Amun said. He gestured toward the cars. "Shall we?"

Bella, Edward, Jenks rode in Amun's car. She would have much rather have ridden in another vehicle, but he steered them firmly to the limo in front. "There are some things we need to discuss," he said. Once inside the car, he put up the window between driver and passengers.

"I have acquired a map of the building where the servers are stored," he said. "It was emailed to me while we were in flight."

"Will you tell us where it is, now?" Bella asked.

Amun shrugged. "Sure. You can't go without me. You need me to take down the servers' backups before it can be destroyed."

"Yes, I acknowledge that," she said impatiently. "Where is it?"

"There's a government installation at Yucca Mountain," he said.

"Isn't that the nuclear waste dump?"

Amun shook his head. He reached forward and opened a small cabinet on the back of the seat and pulled out a bottle of pills. He poured a small handful and tossed them back. "It was never put into operation."

"So they put servers in it?"

Amun shrugged. "Why not? It's geologically stable, arid, and in the middle of nowhere."

"But don't they have to have, like, cables and stuff running to it?"

"Yes, and they had quite a few experiments and tests going on during the construction, so the infrastructure wasn't hard to upgrade for the Theta project's needs. There were even solar panels already installed for the telecommunications equipment."

Bella narrowed her eyes. "How do you know this stuff?"

"I found a GAO report online which explored possible uses of the facility after the nuclear waste project was cancelled. Quite helpful, it was."

"But what upgrades have the Theta Project made in the meantime?"

"I would assume the tunnel map is still accurate. They may have carved out a few more rooms, but I doubt highly that they constructed further tunnels. Too difficult, and there's already plenty of space available."

"Security?"

"That's why we need someone to scout the location."

Edward sighed softly. It would be him, of course, the only one of them that could fly and turn invisible.

"Once we get in, how are you going to destroy the server and take care of any backups?"

"I'm handy with computers," Amun said. "I wrote a very interesting little virus that's meant to seek and destroy files that contain certain identifiers: key words, file numbers, that sort of thing. Once the virus is discovered, they'll try to fight it, of course, but it's designed to go dormant in those situations. They'll think the system is clean, but it hides in sub-directories until it detects the use of another of those identifiers. Say, files stored on a thumb-drive: when the drive is plugged into one of the system computers, the virus will relaunch and destroy the data. All we have to do is allow the virus time to collect the identifiers from the files in the server and spread out to connected systems before we destroy the server."

"That's very clever," Bella said.

Amun seemed pleased by her praise. "I've had the virus written for a while, but I never had an ideal situation like this to use it."

"So, you don't know if it will work," Edward noted.

"Oh, it works, all right. I tested it by unleashing it on a certain ... organization which had caused me a bit of distress. It worked even better than I could have imagined."

"What about paper copies?" Jenks asked.

"Doubtful that they existed outside of the facility Bella destroyed. The Theta Project keeps a tight lid on their research. They're afraid it might leak into the wrong hands. That's why the facility was set to self-destruct in the event of a raid."

"Self-destruct? What?" Bella blurted.

"Did you hear any large explosions coming from the facility itself?"

Bella thought back, but her memories of that night were hazy at best. Edward answered for her. "After I flew you out of the stairwell. There was a massive explosion and huge column of fire came from underground."

Bella had always thought the Theta Project was wrong, but now her opinion of it sank down even lower, past the line in her moral estimation marked "evil". If she hadn't got the residents out in time, they would have all been roasted alive just so the Theta Project's information wouldn't be leaked.

It strengthened her resolve. They were the only people who could destroy the Theta Project once and for all and in her opinion, that made it their duty.

* * *

><p>Of course, the rooms that Amun had arranged for them were beautiful. Would she have expected anything different? She felt scruffy and out-of-place walking through the elegant lobby. They were met by the manager, who handed them their keycards and treated Amun with the deference due to a president or visiting royalty. Amun didn't even seem to notice. He seemed slightly distracted and took his key with only a crisp, "Thank you," which made the manager even more deferential out of fear she had unwittingly caused some offense.<p>

How embarrassing to have a bellhop carry up their plastic grocery bags of clothes, but the bellhop was so polite that he treated it like Prada luggage. Bella fished a $100 out of the black tote bag that Edward carried and the bellhop grinned at her like he'd known she was a princess in disguise all along.

Jane was placed in the connecting suite. She seemed to really like the idea of having her own room, but Esme had begged Jane to let her stay, claiming she was afraid of being in a room on her own in a big city. Bella was thrilled to hear Jane agree. She'd come a long way from the hostile, prickly and self-absorbed girl Bella had met in the facility.

Bella had never stayed in a suite before. She could appreciate a spacious room, of course, but it seemed a little excessive for them to have a living room, kitchenette and dining room with a table that could seat six.

"You could cook spaghetti for me," Edward suggested.

She smiled. "Or, we could order the most expensive stuff off the room service menu since Amun is picking up the tab. I've never tasted Dom Perignon. Or caviar, but fish eggs don't sound very tasty."

"That's one human experience I'm willing to skip," Edward agreed.

Bella thought of the massive whirlpool tub in the bathroom. "Here's another new human experience for you: How about we order some moderately-priced champagne and take a bubble bath together?"

"I like that id-" He cut off in mid word, his eyes going distant.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"It's Emmett," he said. His eyes met hers and they were achingly sad. "He's going."

They hurried down the hall to Alice's room and hammered on the door. There was a long pause before Alice opened it. She didn't look so good.

"Hey guys, did you need something?" she asked.

Bella cast her eyes up to Edward.

"She can feel it," Edward told Bella. "She doesn't know what it is, but she can feel him going."

"What?" Alice asked. She went even paler and her lips were an alarming shade of gray. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Your angel," Bella said. "He's ... leaving." She looked around for any sight of Emmett.

"I need to lay down," Alice mumbled. She swayed on her feet and grabbed the door handle for support. Edward scooped her up in his arms and laid her down on the bed. "Can you see him, Bella?" she asked. Her voice cracked a little. "Can you tell him I said _'thank you_'?"

Bella hadn't seen Emmett in days. Edward said he'd been forgoing a visual representation to conserve his energy, what precious, tiny bit was left. Despite the constant agony of their unrelenting thirst, their hunger, their terrible loneliness, neither he nor Rose wanted to leave. Rose, feeding off of Jane's happiness, was a bit stronger, but she didn't have much time left, either, according to Edward. Their power, or their life force, whatever you wanted to call it, was leaking steadily, like sand through an hourglass. A bit more sand had been added with the hope given them by Carlisle being accepted back home and also in seeing their people begin to recover from the trauma and despair of their captivity, but there was no stopping their slow erosion into nothingness.

Emmett appeared beside her on the bed, a swirl of mist, a thread of smoke. "I wish I could have touched her, just once ..." he said, so faintly that Bella had to strain to hear it even in this quiet room.

And then it came to her.

"Emmett, you can touch her," Bella said. She concentrated on his hand, coating it in a whisper-thin shield like a glove. "Go on."

The hope in his eyes was almost too much to bear. He reached for Alice, his hand shaking with weakness, and cupped her cheek. He sobbed when his hand made contact. He brought his other hand up to her face and Bella quickly coated it like she had with the other. He traced her lips, her cheekbones, the sweep of her eyebrows and then he bent down to her and pressed a kiss to her lips. With a small shimmer, like a mirage in high summer, he vanished.

Bella didn't realize she was crying until Edward wiped the tears away. "That was a beautiful gift that you gave him," he said.

It was one of the few times she had been grateful for her powers. "Is he home?" she asked, half-fearful of the answer.

"He's home," Edward confirmed. Tears shimmered in his beautiful green eyes but he smiled at her.

Bella let out a shuddering breath and Edward kissed her, soft and sweet. "Don't grieve for him. His suffering is over and he's back home where he can speak to her heart once more." He glanced over at Alice, who'd sat up, looking a bit bewildered by the situation. "But you have to listen," he told her.

"Rose?" Bella asked through a tight throat.

He considered. "Tomorrow. The next day perhaps."

She nodded. She sat down on the bed and gave Alice a hug. "You'll feel better now. Rest a bit."

Alice laid her hand over her heart. "Will I really hear him?"

"If you want to," Edward replied.

"I_ felt_ him," Alice whispered, pressing the tip of her finger to her lips. "Bella, _you_ did that?"

Bella nodded. She couldn't speak.

"Thank you," Alice said. "Thank you for that, Bella."

"You're welcome," Bella said automatically. "Rest now, Alice."

Alice obediently laid down, and as Bella closed the room door behind them, she saw Alice reach out to touch the spot where Emmett had lain.

* * *

><p>Though Bella thought that the mood for champagne and bubble baths was gone, Edward insisted and Bella soon found herself shoulder-deep in bubbles, a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries and a flute of champagne perched on the wide rim of the tub beside her. She was glad he had talked her into it. She needed this time with him. He played with the bubbles and it made her smile. She tried to remember if there had ever been a time in her life when she had taken such pleasure in the simple things. Maybe it was something that he could teach her.<p>

"Open," Edward commanded. She did, and he poked the end of a strawberry into her mouth. Bella bit into the cool, luscious fruit. "Mmm."

"You missed a bit," he told her, and bent down to lick a drop of juice from her lower lip. Her breath caught. He smiled and took a sip from his champagne flute.

"I like this," he said. "It's bubbly like beer but it doesn't taste bitter."

"It'll give you a hell of a headache if you drink too much of it," Bella warned.

He hastily set his glass down.

Bella giggled. "One glass is okay, Edward."

He slid closer to her. "Who needs alcohol when I have such an intoxicating woman?" He kissed her, and brushed her hair back from her damp cheeks.

"I still see a shadow in your eyes," he said. "You are sad."

She nodded. "I am. I'm so afraid of losing you, too."

"You can't," he said firmly. "I'll always be with you, Bella. Always."

She kissed him and slid her hands up the back of his neck to hold him firmly in place. Mmm, the tastes of strawberries, chocolate, champagne and Edward. Could any combination be better than that? Without taking her lips from his, she tried to straddle his hips. But the tub was more slippery than she expected and her knee slid out from under her. Before he could catch her, she did an undignified face-plant into the water. She came up sputtering, and dashed the water out of her eyes.

"My Bella," Edward said, and he actually sounded proud of it.

* * *

><p>"Why are we still here?" Bella demanded the next morning. They had all been invited up to Amun's suite for breakfast and a strategy meeting.<p>

Amun wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Patience. I'm waiting on some ... supplies."

Edward looked around the table mournfully. "There are no pancakes?"

"We also need to decide in which city we should make our base of operations," Jenks said. "I say, '_Vegas, baby_.' Only ninety miles away and with every amenity a man could wish for."

Lauren scowled at him. Jenks noticed her expression and he dropped his huge grin hastily.

"Am I to understand there will _be_ no pancakes?" Edward asked.

"Vegas would work," Amun said, tapping the end of his fork against the table. "The problem is how we're going to get into the site itself. Yucca is surrounded by BLM and DOE lands, and Nellis is uncomfortably close by. There are two roads which lead to the site, but we should probably avoid them if at all possible."

"We could hoof it," Jenks said. "Get as close as we can, park and walk the rest of the way."

Amun looked amused. "Have you ever hiked through a desert?"

"Can't say that I have."

"_I_ have," Amun said. "And it's not an experience I wish to repeat."

"Some kinda ATV?" Jenks suggested.

Amun shook his head. "Too noisy."

"Horses?"

Amun considered. "It's a thought. There's a small town about fifteen miles away we could use as a staging area."

"I can't ride a horse," Bella protested.

Amun shrugged. "You can ride with me."

_Not gonna happen._ "Why don't we just hire a helicopter to take us in?" Bella suggested.

"No-fly zone," Amun said.

"Like something like _that_ has ever stopped you."

"It means that the sound of an aircraft would be _noticed_," Amun told her.

"I think I might have an idea," Phoenix said. Like the rest of the crew, he had hung back from the table as if they considered it "leadership territory." They all sat in the living room are of the suite, looking much like a biker gang in a country club as they sat on the sleek, elegant furniture with delicate little plates balanced on their knees.

"What's that?"

"Can you give me twenty-four hours to see if it's workable?"

Amun nodded. "The next step we need to cover is surveillance." He looked at Edward pointedly, though Edward wasn't paying attention. He was gazing morosely at the table as if he hoped it would magically produce his longed-for pancakes.

"Don't you think we should get a little closer before we worry about that?" Bella asked. "Seriously, you don't expect Edward to fly something like three thousand miles round trip."

"No, surveillance on Yucca can wait. I'm thinking of something different."

"Oh, do tell," Bella said. _Did that sound too sarcastic?_

"The general has a lady-friend," Amun started.

"Lady-friend?" Bella repeated. "Getting a bit archaic with the terminology, aren't you?"

"All right, a_ fuck buddy,_ is that better?" Amun snapped. "A mistress. Whatever. She has a sister that lives nearby and I'm told she's visiting. I thought Edward could follow her to see if we pick up any useful information on Aro."

Bella glanced over at her angel, who had discovered jelly and was smearing a piece of toast, front and back, with a thick layer. "If you think I should," he said.

Bella looked to Jenks. "Sounds good to me."

"All right then. Maybe we could both go."

"Can you turn invisible, too?" Amun asked.

"Well, no ... for short periods of time ... What does invisibility matter for Aro's girlfriend? Private detectives follow people all the time and they aren't invisible."

Edward piled on more jelly from the other dishes until his piece of toast had a stratified pile. He tried to take a bite, but the jelly wobbled and threatened to slide off. He put another piece of toast on top to hold it in place and took a bite. He looked at his culinary masterpiece with much the same look of pleasure and pride that Cro-Magnon man must of worn when he thumped his chest and declared, "_Behold! I have created fire!_"

"Bella? Can we draw your attention away from your boyfriend for just a moment to discuss the death-defying mission?" Jenks asked politely.

"The girlfriend has security," Amun said. "And they are _jumpy_."

"Why on earth would Aro have security for his girlfriend?"

"For people like us," Amun replied.

Edward held his toast-jelly sandwich out to Bella for her to try. She held up her hands. "No, thanks." To Amun she said, "Do you know where she is now?"

"Exact location."

"Edward?"

"After breakfast," he said, and scraped the jelly pot carefully to scrape out the last molecule.

On their balcony, she hugged and kissed him and made him swear to be back by dark. She hated this. Mentally, she was well aware that he was tougher than she was, immortal, in fact, but her heart still clenched in fear to have him out of her sight. "I love you," she said, and squeezed him tightly. "Come back to me."

"Always," he swore. He kissed her again and vaulted up onto the railing. He blew her a kiss and then dove off of it, enjoying the free fall before snapping his wings out to catch the air. She watched until he was only a dot on the horizon. She turned slowly and walked back into the room. She slid the door shut and then looked up and screamed.

"Jesus, Amun!" She had nearly jumped out of her skin. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"I knocked," Amun said. "You didn't answer."

"And so that meant, _'Come on in'__?"_

"I needed to talk to you."

Her heart was still going a mile-a-minute. She sat down on the sofa. "What?"

He gazed at the balcony door and the sky beyond for a moment. "What does he have that I don't?"

Bella was too shocked to laugh. It was the dumbest question she had ever heard. "You want a list? For starters, he's _nice_. You're not."

"I could be." He gazed at her levelly.

"You'll have to pardon me if I'm skeptical."

He stalked toward her slowly and leaned down, bracing one arm on either side of her on the back of the sofa. "I could be _very_ nice," he said.

"Stop it," she said.

He leaned closer.

She lashed out with her power, intending to shove him back, but he flicked his hand and nothing happened. Shocked, she rammed at him harder, but it seemed to pass through him like wind through a screen door.

"Stop, Bella," he said. "Don't strain and hurt yourself. I'll back off."

He straightened and stepped back a pace.

"What are you?" she asked, her voice soft with wonder.

He sat down on the other end of the sofa. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"Exactly what I said: _I don't know_."

She tried another approach. "How is it possible not to know what you are? Where did you come from?"

He shook his head. "I just always _was_. I have no memory of being anything other than what I am right now. Whether I was born, or created, I cannot say. "

"Maybe you're a demon," Bella said tentatively.

His mouth quirked. "Do you know what a demon's existence is like, Bella? Doomed to walk the earth until the end of time, cursed to never, _ever_ be loved?"

Was that why he was pursuing her? To see if she could love him, which would answer a much larger question in his own mind? Or was it nothing more than one of his little games? "How long has it been for you?"

"Too long," he said.

"There has to be a reason that you don't know," Bella said.

"Not everything has a purpose, Bella."

"Did you love Victoria?" she asked.

He stood and walked to the door. He paused in front of it. "No, but she was mine." And then he was gone.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

..

Bella went down to the front desk and claimed she had lost her key. They made her a new one and promised that they wouldn't make another without informing her first. They made a note on her account, but Bella doubted it would be helpful; after all, they had made her a new key without checking her account in the computer first.

She went back up to her room and knocked on the connecting door. Esme answered it and Dave bounded over to Bella. He stood on his back legs and jumped, waving his little tail, until she picked him up. He licked every bit of skin he could reach and wiggled with excitement. That was the best thing about having a dog, Bella thought. They were always happy to see you and even if you'd only been gone for an hour, a dog greeted you like they hadn't seen you in years.

Jane had been playing tug-of-war with him while she watched soap operas. Bella wrinkled her nose. "Those shows will rot your brain."

"Sorry, NOVA isn't on," Jane said. "For such a nice hotel, their cable really sucks. Where's Edward? You guys are usually glued at the hip."

"He's out on a spy mission," Bella replied. "He'll be back before dark, though."

But he wasn't. Bella watched the sun go down from the room's balcony. Her eyes searched the sky until it was too dark to see.

"Bella?" Jane said.

"Hmm?"

"Why don't you come and have some supper?"

"Supper?" Bella repeated, as if she'd never heard the word.

"Yeah, I ... um ... I went ahead and ordered room service since you didn't seem like you'd want to go out or cook anything. I hope that's okay."

"That's fine." Bella hadn't taken her eyes off the sky. "You go ahead and eat. I'm not hungry."

There was a tap at the door and Bella nearly knocked Jane down as she ran to answer it, but it was Collin. Her face fell.

"Well, Christ, I haven't had someone look that unhappy to see me since I was doin' collections for the mob," Collin said. "You okay, Bella?"

"Yeah. I was just hoping you were Edward."

"He's not back yet?"

"No." There was a cold knot in the pit of her stomach. She kept reminding herself that Edward was immortal. But why hadn't he returned?

"Did you need something?" she asked, without much interest.

"I'm here to walk the puppy," he said. "Edward didn't want Jane going outside alone to do it herself, so us guys are taking turns."

"Yeah, okay." She nodded and then wandered back out to the balcony to wait. She sat down on the floor of the balcony, her back to the wall and waited, staring out into the night. At some point, Jane came out and told her good night and Bella must have responded because she hugged her and then went back inside. Even as numb as she felt, she noted that it was the first time Jane had ever hugged her. The stars slowly rotated overhead.

Jasper came out to sit with her. He put his arm around her shoulders and they simply sat there in silence. That was one of Jasper's best traits: he was extremely perceptive and sensitive to the moods of those around him. He knew Bella didn't want to talk, but she did derive some comfort from laying her head on his shoulder.

Dawn came and the sun crept up over the horizon. Jasper kissed her on top of the head and went inside for breakfast. Bella jumped at every speck she saw in the sky, but it was always a bird or an airplane. Jane brought her a cup of coffee and sat down beside her, holding her own cup.

"Edward would tell you to drink juice," Bella said.

"Yeah, well if he wants to stop me, he'd better get his ass back here and do it himself," Jane retorted and took a sip.

Bella couldn't argue with that. She drank her coffee and watched the sun climb higher. At some point, Esme switched for Jane and she brought a cup of tomato soup she commanded Bella to drink. Bella did, just to stop her nagging. Alice replaced Jane around the time the sky began to darken again.

"Bella?"

She looked up and saw Amun in the doorframe. Suddenly, rage washed through her with the speed and force of a flash flood and she slammed him with her power. She felt him try to fight it but her anger gave her fuel, strength to burn. She flung him against the wall and held him there, pinned like a butterfly to a collector's album.

"What did you do?" she demanded.

"Bella? What do you mean? Let me go, goddamit!"

She hit him across the face with her power and blood trickled from his nose. "What. Did. You. Do." Her voice was low and raw and the sound of it even scared herself a little.

"Bella, I swear to God I didn't do anything. I don't know any more about what happened to Edward than you do."

"You lying son of a bitch," Bella hissed. "I ought to rip you into shreds." She hit him again and blood sprayed from his mouth across the wall.

"Bella," Alice said.

"Fuck off," Bella snapped.

Alice raised her hands and backed away.

"You tell me right now what you did to him or we're going to find out in a slow and very thorough fashion if you're really immortal or not."

"Bella, I swear it to you. I didn't do anything."

"Why should I believe anything you say?" she spat. She tightened an invisible hand around his throat.

"I can help you find him," Amun rasped. She felt him surge against her power, trying to shove back, to get her to release him, but it was like shooting a BB at a boulder. She remembered feeling like this during her fever, so powerful that she could rip the very planet in two if she wished. She held Amun in the palm of her hand like an ant that she could crush at will. And part of her was tempted to do it.

Was that because her angel, who represented her good side, was missing? Had she lost her connection with him and with him, the Light inside her? She dropped Amun and he landed on the carpet, gasping.

Esme came out of the kitchenette with soapy water in the ice bucket and a sponge in hand. She dragged the sofa closer to the wall and hopped up on it and began to scrub Amun's blood off the wall.

"You call out every single resource you have," Bella said to Amun. "Because if I don't have him back with twenty-four hours, I'll destroy you. I'll rip you apart and bury the pieces in concrete in the four corners of the globe."

Amun looked awe-struck. "I think I love you."

"Twenty-four hours," she said. She glanced at the door and it swung open. She picked up Amun and threw him out into the hallway and slammed the door behind him.

She went back out to the balcony and sat down.

* * *

><p>"Bella?"<p>

She glanced up. She could make out Jenks in the pre-dawn light. "Yeah?"

"Do you have anything with Edward's DNA on it?"

"Do angels even _have_ DNA?"

"I don't know. We found something." He opened his palm to show her a syringe.

"Where?" she asked.

"The girlfriend's sister's house. The place is cleaned out. We found this in the bushes beside the front steps, and I got a buddy in St. Paul who works in a lab. He can do us a DNA analysis in a few hours' time."

"You think someone used that syringe on Edward?"

Jenks looked grim. "It ain't exactly a junkies' neighborhood, so I'm guessing that yeah, they used the syringe on him."

"What is it?"

"It's not like I can tell from looking at it," Jenks said with a bit of impatience. "But there's blood in the needle and I'd like to find out if it's Edward's. So, you got anything or not?"

"Toothbrush," she said, turning back to the sky. Edward enjoyed brushing his teeth, and did it multiple times per day. He wasn't so keen on flossing, however, and she had to nag him to-

She burst into tears. A small body folded around hers, and it was Jane, hugging her tightly. "We'll find him, Bella, I promise," Jane said. "God won't let anything bad happen to him."

Bella wished she could believe that.

Nightfall.

Jenks came out onto the balcony and sat down beside Bella. He lit a cigarette and offered her the pack. Bella took one. Jenks lit his own and then moved the lighter over to hers, cupping his hand to protect the flame. Bella inhaled and coughed.

"Never smoked before?" Jenks asked.

"No," Bella managed between coughs.

"Well, the good news is you're going to get a little bit of a buzz from the nicotine and the coughing. The bad news is _the coughing_." Jenks laid his head back against the wall and blew out a stream of smoke. Bella took another tiny puff and strained not to cough, emitting several little grunts as she held them back, and the smoke leaked out of her mouth.

"Ugh. It tastes awful," she said.

"Yep," Jenks agreed.

"Did you find out anything?"

"The syringe and the toothbrush were a match."

Bella froze and even her coughing ceased.

"The lab guy went nuts over the sample. Apparently, your guy has some damn interesting DNA. Something about having too many chroma-whatsits."

"Chromosomes?" Bella asked faintly. She stubbed the cigarette out on the floor.

"Yeah, them things. The syringe itself contained a powerful sedative."

Bella let out a shuddering sob.

"Oh, hey, honey, don't cry," Jenks said. He put an arm around her shoulders. "Shh, it's all right. We'll find him, I promise."

Bella cried harder and Jenks pulled her into his arms. He rocked her gently while saying soft, soothing things, making promises. He pressed a kiss against the top of her head. "Shh, kiddo. You know Edward wouldn't want you to cry like this."

"I c-can't h-help it," Bella hiccuped. "O c-can't do th-this without h-him."

"You won't have to," he swore. He took the hem of his t-shirt and wiped her eyes. "Now, come on, we need the mean, ass-kicking Bella from last night."

"Jenks, do you believe Amun when he claims he had nothing to do with it?"

Jenks thought for a moment. "Yeah, I think I do. He wouldn't jeopardize the mission by getting rid of one of our most valuable assets right before we go in. If he was going to do something to Edward, he probably would have waited until afterward."

"Who then? This mysterious girlfriend?"

"That's what it's looking like. Fuckin' house was completely empty with shit scattered all over the rugs like they'd left in a hurry."

"I don't understand _how_," Bella said.

"You told me once before that he was visible with infrared goggles."

"Yeah, but who has bodyguards standing around with a pair of them?"

"Someone who knows about an invisible man," Jenks said. "Jacob knew about him, knew that he was with you, and we've got to assume he would have reported this unusual being to his superiors."

"So they knocked him out? I can't believe that would work on an angel."

Jenks shrugged. "I got him drunk. Why do you think tranqs wouldn't work?"

He had a good point. Bella hugged her arms around herself. She still gazed out over the skyline, hoping to see Edward, hoping that this nightmare would end and she could be back in his arms again. She felt like half of herself had been torn away, leaving a massive, gaping wound.

Jenks must have seen it on her face because he pulled her into his arms again. "You're not alone, kiddo. Remember that. We're all here for you."

"I am, too," Amun said from the doorway.

Bella felt that red-hot rage pour into her again and she had to fight the temptation to throw him over the balcony.

"Please, Bella," he started.

"I won't kill you," Bella said. "Yet."

He nodded. "We need to go, Bella. We need to break into that server. It's the only place where we might find information on where they've taken him."

"Is there another facility?" Bella asked.

"That's what we're going to find out," Amun replied.

* * *

><p>The plane they took to Nevada was smaller than Amun's jet. He didn't say whether it was his or borrowed or stolen and Bella didn't bother to ask.<p>

Jane and Lauren were the only people that didn't accompany them. Jane had thrown what could only be described as a temper tantrum when Bella told her she couldn't go.

"I'm not a little kid!" Jane shouted. "I can take care of myself! I can fight! I love Edward too and I should be allowed to help rescue him."

It was Jenks who came up with the solution: "And who's going to take care of Lauren and Dave while we're gone, huh? Lauren doesn't have any powers. She can't protect herself if the Theta Project figures out where we've been staying. I need someone with her that I can trust."

Jane was mollified by that, but still unhappy that she couldn't go with the rest of the team.

The hardest part was saying goodbye to Rose. She didn't even have enough strength to become visible, so Bella could not give her the gift of touching her human the way she had for Emmett. She knew, without a doubt, that Rose would be gone by the time she came back, and it disturbed her greatly that she would be alone when it happened, without even the comfort of a friend at her side.

"Thank you, for everything," she told Rose. "I wish I-" she cut off and looked down at the floor. Dave, at her feet, gave a soft whine. He trotted over stare at something Bella could not see and then looked back at her anxiously. He nudged at the air.

"Rose, can Dave see you?"

"I think he can," Rose replied, her voice as soft as falling snow.

So, she wouldn't be completely alone, even if her only companion was a scruffy runt of a canine.

They landed at a private airport outside of Las Vegas and Amun had a car waiting for them to take them to their hotel.

"I've never heard of this place," Bella said, looking up at the curved front of a tall building. "The Wynn. Is it new?"

"Yes, relatively new," he said.

The check-in process seemed to be a lot different for rich people than from ordinary folks. Amun simply said his name and then accepted keycards from an effusive manager. They were directed to a special elevator only for the suites, which Bella guessed was to spare rich people the indignity of rubbing shoulders with the common folk. Bella almost laughed at the looks directed to Jenks and his crew, but none of them seemed to be effected by it in the least. He passed out the cards on each floor the elevator stopped, assigning rooms to the crew seemingly at random. Alice and Esme shared a suite on the tenth floor and Jasper stepped off the elevator with them rather than riding up to his own room. As the doors closed, Bella saw Alice smile at him and pause in the hallway outside her door for a chat.

"Top floor," Amun murmured. He and Bella were the last ones in the elevator. They stepped off and Amun opened a door. The room was massive, as large as a spacious apartment, and beautifully decorated with pieces that were mixture of classic and modern style. There were floor-to-ceiling windows that framed an amazing view of the Strip.

"Our suite," Amun said.

"_Ours_? No fucking way," Bella retorted. She turned and headed for the door.

"Bella, wait." Amun caught her arm and Bella narrowed her eyes at him. He dropped his hand and stepped back, holding both hands aloft like a man in a stick-up. "It's not what you think. There are two bedrooms in this suite. Everyone is worried about you, Bella. Without Edward's protection ... This is only for your safety. No one wants you staying alone."

"I'll bunk with Quil," Bella said.

"He's in a king suite. Only one bed."

"If it's a suite, I'll bet it has a sofa."

Amun sighed. "Get Alice or Esme to come up and stay with us if you feel you need a chaperone."

There was a tap at the door. Bella opened it with her power and Alice strode in with a smile on her face. "I had a vision!" she chirped. "You were going to call me to come up here."

"That's great, Alice," Bella said, trying to muster up some enthusiasm for the return of Alice's talent, but she still felt numb and empty. She and Alice went into the second bedroom, leaving the master bedroom for Amun.

Alice sat down on the bed and patted the space beside her. Bella sat down obediently.

"Are you all right, Bella?" Alice asked.

"No, I don't think I am," Bella replied. "I feel ... vacant, Alice. Except when I cry. Then I feel the pain. Otherwise, I'm numb. I'm lost."

"We're going to find him, Bella, I know it."

"Have you seen it?"

"No," Alice confessed. "The only thing I've seen since we were in Chile is the vision of you calling and asking me to come up here. I thought maybe that it meant my ability was coming back, but now I'm back to nothing. It's scary, Bella. It feels almost like we don't _have_ a future."

Maybe she _shouldn't_ have one, Bella thought. If she died, Edward would instantly be by her side again, for all eternity.

Alice gasped and her eyes lost their focus. The pupil expanded until there was almost no iris visible. She blinked rapidly and re-focused. "Bella, you can't do that! Edward wouldn't want you to, and you know it."

"I can't endure this, Alice. I can't." Their constant companionship on the balcony made sense now. She almost laughed. They'd thought of it before she had.

"We'll get him back," Alice promised.

"I'm sick of people saying that," Bella said. She went over to the huge windows and looked out over the Strip. "We have no idea where they're keeping him and for all we know, the stupid Yucca Mountain thing could be a trap."

"You've fought your way out of traps before."

"That was when I had something to fight for,'" Bella said. She laid her forehead against the cool glass.

"You still do. Jane needs you. Jenks needs you. And God help you, I think Amun needs you, too."

"I hate him," Bella said. "I can't help but think he had something to do with this."

"He wouldn't be working so hard to get him back if that was true. I saw him myself, Bella. He was on the computer, constantly making calls, trying to find out if the Theta Project had other facilities. I don't think he's slept any more than you have."

"I can't sleep," Bella said. "Not without a wing to cover me."

Because she couldn't sleep, she paced. Alice had finally succumbed to her exhaustion and curled up in their king-sized bed. Bella wandered out into the living room. The lights from the Strip outside provided enough light for navigation and she made her way to one of the sofas. Two days now, or was it three? She couldn't keep track.

She heard a noise and looked up to see Amun shuffling into the kitchen area. He was wearing one of the hotel's bathrobes and slippers. He poured himself a glass of water, opened a bottle of pills and shook some into his hand. He tossed them in his mouth and washed them down with the water.

He noticed her and came over to stand beside the sofa. "Bella? Are you all right?"

"I'm really starting to loathe that question," she said, though without any heat.

"Can I do anything to help?" he asked. He leaned against the padded arm of one of the nearby chairs and took another sip of his water.

"I still think you did this," Bella told him. "So, no, I'm not likely to ask you for anything."

He sighed and set down the empty water glass. "There's no way I can prove it to you until we find him." He sat down on the sofa beside her. "I wouldn't do this to you, Bella. There's no way I would cause you this much pain. I won't lie, I want you for my own, but this would not be the way to do it. You're even more hostile to me now than you were before."

She'd never heard emotion in his voice before. It was surprising. If it was sincere, that is. She had her doubts. "You've never understood it, have you? He's the other half of me. The _better_ half of me, the better angel of my nature, so to speak. You can't take me away from that. You could never give me what he does."

"Perhaps," he said. "And perhaps I could give you other things."

"Are you sure they're what I'd want?"

"You wouldn't know until you tried them," Amun countered. "Tell me something, Bella. Have you ever been with a man other than Edward?"

Bella should have blushed at the question. The Bella she'd been a week ago would have, but this Bella was too coated in layers of numbness. "No."

He nodded, as if that was the answer he expected. "So, you have no idea what life outside of him is like. You don't know if another man could make you happy because you've never tried. You've isolated yourself with this _other half_ of yours, the equivalent of masturbation, if you ask me."

"No one did," Bella said.

"Oh, Bella, you have no idea of what you could be, what you could do. I can see it within you, such enormous potential, but you prefer to hide away from the world."

"It's my choice, isn't it?"

"Of course it is, but you were given a gift, Bella. And there was a reason for that, a reason you're not even trying to find."

"Have you found yours?" she retorted.

He was quiet for a long moment. "No. But at least I'm looking."


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

..

Dave curled up beside the winged-female in a warm patch of sunlight. No one else could see her, a situation Dave found very confusing. He watched his pack's new puppy and the older female bustling around the den. They did this every day, getting in the water-fall and disguising their scent and then putting on different pieces of flat fur. Then the new puppy would pat him and vocalize and they would leave. Dave thought they must be out hunting for food. They sometimes smelled like food when they came back, but didn't bring any back to the den, so maybe they were bad at it.

The winged-woman always moaned when the puppy left. She was very sick; Dave could tell. (He had tried to bring her some grass the last time the older female took him outside, but she pulled it out of his mouth.) She never moved from that spot on the floor and the others walked through her when they crossed the den. Dave tried to lick her, but his tongue went through her like she was made of air. Maybe she was. It might explain why her mind couldn't talk to his. He had thought she was the same kind of creature as the winged-man, but now he wasn't so sure.

She sighed, and Dave knew she was unhappy. He laid his head beside her and whined, all that he could offer her in the way of comfort. Everybody seemed unhappy lately. The winged-man hadn't come home from hunting and now the female was gone too. He liked the new puppy and she played with him often, but he missed the winged-man, the only one smart enough to know how to talk, and he missed the female. She was the only one who could find that itchy spot beneath his collar and her scent had come to mean "comfort" in his mind.

The winged-woman said his name-word and Dave wagged his tail. She smiled at him softly and then reached out her hand to pet him, but it passed through him. Dave gave her credit for trying, anyway and wiggled over to her for a snuggle. It wasn't quite as satisfying as curling up to a warm peoplebody, but she seemed to appreciate it.

And then she was gone. Where had she gone? Dave jumped to his feet and turned in a circle, but she wasn't there. Had he lost her, like he'd lost his ball? He let out a mournful whimper. He hoped the winged-man wasn't upset at Dave for losing her. He trotted around the den, looking for her, peering under the furniture and even stood up on his hind legs to peek onto the water-fall. He sat down and gave his problem some thought. The winged-man had helped Dave find his ball when he lost it, so maybe he could help find the winged-woman, too.

* * *

><p>Bella stared, open-mouthed, at the vehicle that waited for them outside the small town where they had parked their cars. Phoenix sat on top of it, his mouth stretched in a wide grin of pride. "What do ya think?"<p>

"What the fuck _is_ it?" Bella asked.

It looked like a tank had been put on wheels, _eight_ wheels to be precise.

"This, my dear, is a Stryker ICV, courtesy of the U.S. military. It can go sixty miles per hour and has a range of over 300 miles." Phoenix hopped down to the ground level. He patted the vehicle's sides. "Armored, relatively quiet ... it's perfect for this mission."

"You don't think anyone will notice it?" Jasper asked. "It's huge."

"Hopefully, the cover of night will protect us, and well, if they do, that's what the armor is for. It used to have a machine gun up here on top. Damn shame the army takes that shit off before they sell them as surplus."

"Where did you get it?" Bella asked.

"Friend of mine has a whacko-survivalist-conspiracy-theorist-paramilitary compound not too far from here. Place is a goddam fortress. Come on, everybody pile in. Good news is that they put a _bitchin'_ stereo system in this bastard."

He pulled down the tailgate in the back. They had to crouch to get inside. Two benches ran along the sides of the vehicle. Jenks lifted up the seats and stashed his arsenal beneath, keeping only the handguns he wore on holsters at his sides. It had been these guns which were the "supplies" Amun had been waiting for. They had been delivered to their suite in Vegas in long dress boxes, wrapped in pretty lavender tissue paper. The people downstairs must have thought Bella was ordering an entire new wardrobe based on the number of boxes that were hauled up to their room.

There were holes with dangling wires where pieces of electronics had been removed. "Uh, don't touch anything," Forks said from the front passenger seat. "We're really not sure what some of those buttons do."

After everyone was inside, Phoenix shut the tailgate and came around front to jump into the driver's seat. "Brace yourself, Effie," he said and started the engine. They took off with a lurch. Bella was thrown from her seat and landed on Quil, her face in his lap. He blushed and stammered as Bella mumbled an apology and sat up.

"Hit the stereo!" Phoenix commanded, and Justin Beiber blared from of the speakers. Alarmed, Phoenix mashed at the buttons until it was silenced. "Uh, someone must have, um, left a CD in the player or something."

"It's not a CD," Forks said. "It's from the MP3 player. _Your_ MP3 player."

"Shut up, asshole. That ain't mine."

Forks turned it over. "It has your name written on it."

"Fuck you. If you don't shut your yap, I'll tell everyone I saw you in line for the _Twilight_ premiere."

"I was on a _date_, fuckhead."

"Bullshit. You didn't have no girl with you."

"If _you_ don't shut up, I'll tell everyone how you cried when we watched _The Lion King."_

"Dude, we were _eight_!"

"I'd rather listen to music than you two guys bickering," Bella called.

"Yeah, music ... Ah, here we go."

_Let the bodies hit the floor,  
>Let the bodies hit the floor...<em>

_"That's _more like it," Jenks said._  
><em>

Bella sat back and watched the men play air guitar and bash on imaginary drums. Esme looked like she wished she could climb out and ride on top. Alice, on the other hand, cheerfully joined in the rocking-out, dancing in her seat while Collin grinned in approval. Convinced they were occupied, Bella let herself sink into thoughts of Edward.

She was tormented by visions of what they could be doing to him to try to get him to tell them where Bella and the rest of the escapees were. _Tell them, Edward_, she thought. _Tell them every__thing. Whatever they want, just so they don't hurt you_.It made sense now why Jenks had been so secretive about where the other Gifted were going after they split up. You couldn't give up information you didn't have.

Tears welled in her eyes and she hastily wiped them away before anyone could notice. She looked up and saw Amun watching her and she glared at him, hoping he'd look away and give her at least a modicum of privacy. He moved from his bench across to hers and sat down in the narrow gap between Jenks and Bella. Jenks grunted indignantly at being crowded and shuffled over a few inches.

He leaned over close to her so he wouldn't have to yell. "Bella, you can't occupy your thoughts with these dark imaginings," he said quietly, his lips only inches fro her ear. "Instead, think on what you'll do to anyone who has harmed him. Your anger gives you more power."

_"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the Dark Side,"_ Bella quoted.

Amun smirked. "Perhaps, but it's not your side of sweetness and light that's going to get your angel back."

He was right; it wasn't. She was going to have to become Dark Bella again, floating in her ball of lightning ... She closed her eyes against a sudden surge of nausea. She still hadn't fully come to terms with all that she had done that night and now she was going to have to do it again.

"Deep breaths," Amun counseled.

"Are you reading my mind?" she demanded.

"I can't help it," he confessed. "I love listening to your thought processes. They're so deliciously muddled."

Could Edward still hear her? she wondered. She hoped so. She hoped he could feel how much she loved him and know that she was coming for him, would do anything it took to get him back.

Phoenix was using the steering wheel and dash as a drum kit during _Enter Sandman_ by Metallica, and in one of those _can't-believe-it-happened-outside-of-a-movie_ moments, the moment that James Hetfield sang _"Boom!_" they slammed into a sand dune. The music fell silent.

Everyone in the back was now in a pile on the floor in the front. There were groans, yelps and curses.

"What in the blue fuck just happened!" Jenks shouted from somewhere on the bottom of the pile.

Phoenix moaned and rubbed his head. He had a knot on his forehead crowned by a cut that was sending a trickle of blood down toward his eye. "Hit something," he muttered.

"Well, no fucking shit you hit something. What did you hit?"

Phoenix looked out the windshield. "It's big, amorphous in shape, and appears to be comprised of sand. I'm guessing it's a big-ass pile of sand, Boss."

"Aw, fuck," Jenks groaned. "Goddam it, Ben, get your ass out of my face."

"Sorry," Ben muttered.

It took time to untangle themselves. Alice, who had fortunately landed at the top, chirped. "It's like a game of Twister went tragically wrong."

Amun had landed on top of Bella and he was using his knees and elbows to keep the weight of the pile off of her. "Fancy meeting you like this," he said with one of his wicked grins. His eyes went to her lips.

"Try it and I'll send you through the roof," Bella warned.

Amun smirked. "Can't blame a guy for his thoughts."

"Everyone all right? Anyone dead?" Jenks called.

Quil grunted as an elbow accidentally hit him in the gut. "Are you expecting a dead person to reply?"

"Fuck you, Flamer," Jenks retorted.

"The birth of a new nickname," Collin decreed.

"Anyone who calls me that gets set on fire. Fair warning has been given."

The back of the truck was at an incline, so it was a little difficult reaching the tailgate. Jenks and Collin wrestled with it and dropped it open. Jasper took Bella's hands and helped her up and over the gate. Everyone climbed out and stared at the front of the Stryker, its hood half-buried in a sand dune.

"What the fuck, Phoenix? Did you not see the giant goddam _mountain of sand_ in front of you?"

"I thought we could drive over it," Phoenix said sheepishly.

"Jesus Christ," Jenks muttered. He pulled out a pirated GPS device and checked their location. "We're only a mile from the mountain. We'll hoof it from here. Phoenix, you get a fuckin' shovel and you dig the fuckin' truck out, got it?"

"I didn't bring a shovel, Jenks!" Phoenix said.

Jenks cupped his hands. "Look, Nature's shovel." He smacked Phoenix upside the head. "Moron. I'm sure you can find something in here which will function as a shovel. Use your goddam imagination. Jesus!"

He jumped back up inside the truck and reappeared moments later with his arms full of rifles. He passed them out like Halloween candy and went back for more.

Amun held a handgun out to Bella. "You'll want this."

She shook her head. "I don't need a gun."

"Take it," he urged. "Just in case. What would you do if the bastards captured you?"

Bella remembered the promise she'd wrung out of Edward at the restaurant. She'd made him promise that he'd kill her before he'd let her be recaptured. A horrible, ugly thing to make a man who loved you swear to, but she had done it. And she had meant it. She still did. She'd far rather die than be in one of those facilities again. She took the gun silently and stuck it in the back of her jeans, and pulled the hem of her shirt over it.

"I want you to know, I'd do it for you, too," he said. Bella didn't know what to say, but she was grateful for it.

Jenks reappeared with large canteen bags. "I know this'll be fuckin' heavy guys, but you gotta carry it with us. If we walk back in the daylight, we're going to need water and a fuckload of it.

"For Christ's sake, Jenks, we're only a fuckin' mile away," Collin protested.

"Famous last words," Jenks said darkly. "Ain't smart to walk around in the desert without it. We could get lost. We could get pinned down. You never know what might happen. So, carry the fuckin' water and shut the fuck up about it, pretty please?"

Collin grumbled but he took the bag and everyone else did as well, except for Bella, Alice and Esme. For once, Bella appreciated sexism when Jenks deemed the bags too heavy for the women to carry. He, Collin and Amun each took an extra one "for the ladies", as Jenks put it. Radios were distributed, not enough for everyone, unfortunately, but Bella figured it was one less thing she'd have to worry about losing or breaking.

Jenks chose part of the crew to stay behind to assist with the dig-out. Jasper opted to stay with this group and Bella understood why. Though he wanted to support her and assist her, Jasper was no killer. Bella didn't want to force him to change that, either.

The rest of them started off into the darkness. Bella watched the ground beneath her feet carefully. Snakes, scorpions, cacti ... there were many bitey-pokey things in the desert and for a clumsy person, it was a very painful accident waiting to happen. Well, at least Amun wouldn't object to picking cactus needles out of her ass. Behind her, she heard him laugh.

It was so dark that the top of the mountain seemed to blend in with the overcast sky. It was a shame. Bella had heard that the view of the stars in the desert was amazing. They crept ever closer. She began to make out the shapes of buildings. None had lights on inside and Bella started to feel hopeful that the Yucca Mountain site had been basically abandoned.

Then they heard voices. Jenks gestured to them quickly and they turned off their flashlights. Slowly, they crept toward the buildings. "I smell hamburgers," Collin whispered.

Bella sniffed. She did too. They reached a Quonset hut on the edge of the compound and peeked around. They saw two uniformed guards standing over a grill, poking at the hissing meat.

"Billy, I _really_ think they're done," one of them said.

"Last time you said that, we took 'em all in and Carl was _pissed _when he cut into one of 'em and found a red center. You remember that?"

Even in the low light, Bella could see the intertwined "TP", the Theta Project's logo, on their uniform shirts.

"Yeah, but I'd rather have to put 'em back on than have 'em all tough and dried out."

So there were at least three of them. They watched as one of the men scooped the hamburgers up onto a plate and walked across the grounds. Big plate. More than three, surely, unless one of them had an appetite like a bear. Jenks held up a hand for them to stay put, pointed at himself and then at his eyes. They all nodded. Crouched low, he inched his way across the compound yard toward the hut where the guards had gone. Bella looked at the vast tunnel entrance before them. A set of rails led inside, and a chain-link fence covered the mouth. Piece of cake, she thought.

The door opened and Jenks dove under the stairs to hide. One of the guards clomped down the steps and went toward the tunnel entrance, bearing a plate of hamburgers and carrying two sodas and a bag of chips in his other hand. Two more down in the tunnel, then. Could there really only be a total of five?

He opened the lock on the gate and went inside. Bella waved to Jenks, who had crawled out from under the stairs and pointed at herself and then the entrance. He shook his head. Bella ignored him. She darted forward and Amun grabbed her arm. She glared at him. "I'm coming with you," he whispered.

"No."

"Yes."

She rolled her eyes. Fine. She tiptoed through the compound yard to the gate at the mouth of the tunnel. Her heart was pounding so loudly that she thought it would surely echo off the stone walls. They followed the tracks, stepping on the wood ties to make the least amount of noise. They saw the bobbing of the guard's flashlight beam disappear around a bend. They followed, as closely as they dared. Around the corner and in front of them was a glass door. They both ducked back quickly before anyone saw them.

Bella's heart sank. Through the opening, she saw an office, just like an office that could be seen in any corporation, divided into cubicles, people busily typing, filing, answering phones under fluorescent light panels... The guard stopped at one of the desks and sat down on a chair he took from an unused desk. He and the woman seated there began to share the hamburgers and chips, smiling at each other in a way that told any observers that they were a young couple in love.

"Why the fuck would they have an office operating in the middle of the night?" Amun muttered.

"We can't do this," Bella said. Her knees shook and she lowered herself carefully to the floor. She was not going to kill a bunch of secretaries.

"The fuck we can't," Amun spat. He knelt behind her and grabbed her arm. "Would you feel the same way about the secretaries who typed up the death lists at the concentration camps?"

"Good God, Amun, it's not nearly the same thing! You can't even compare the two."

"Really? They steal you away from your families and then when they're done with you, they toss you into the snow to shoot you. The only fucking difference is the scale."

Bella's mind flashed to that chimney and how she thought that would be her final destination.

"What this tells us is that it's a far larger organization than we thought. That means more people than we imagined are suffering the way you suffered, the way my Victoria suffered. And I, for one, am saying _no."_

He switched the safety off on his rifle, stood and marched over to the glass door. With one kick, he shattered it. Bella heard screams and the crashes of furniture as people jumped from their desks, knocked over chairs ... and then gunfire and more screams. Bella pressed her hands over her ears.

_They're Theta Project. They're evil_. _Oh, God, no they're not, they're just people with a job and a mortgage and two-point-five kids. But they have to know. They have to know what those files say. They have to know what's going on at the facilities. Does that make them as guilty as Jacob?_

"Bella! What the fuck are you doing?" Jenks barked.

She looked up at him through a shimmer of tears and his face softened. "Come on, honey." He held out his hand and she took it. He drew her to her feet.

"There!" someone shouted. Bella threw up a shield and it was the only thing that saved their lives as the guards running down the hall toward them began to fire. Jenks shoved Bella into the short entryway where the glass doors had once stood. "Drop the shield," he commanded. She did and the sound of his rifle in the small space was deafening. Bella pressed her palms even harder against her ears. "Got 'em," Jenks announced cheerfully.

"Bella! Bella!" Alice shouted.

"Here," Bella called. She peeked around the edge and saw the rest of the group trotting down the slope toward them. Alice threw herself down on the ground beside Bella and grabbed her in a hug. "I _saw_," she said. "In a moment, three guards are going to come out of the hallway in the office next to the soda machines and Amun is going to shoot them."

She'd barely finished saying it before the shots rang out.

"They're back," Bella said, more a statement than a question.

"They're back," Alice confirmed. She stood. "Come on, Bella. We've got to get moving."

They walked through the office. Bella refused to look down and, of course, she tripped over the first obstacle in her path. She fell on her hands and knees next to a corpse of a woman not much older than she was. The top of her head was gone. Bella scrambled back, her gorge rising and the heel of her hand landed on the cooling arm of another body. She grabbed a trash can and retched. She hadn't eaten much in the last few days, so there was little to come up, but her stomach didn't seem to believe that and enthusiastically pushed to expel everything. A hand appeared in front of her face holding a cone-shaped cup of water. She sipped it. Her stomach considered the matter and decided to allow it, so she drank some more.

Amun walked over to a desk and picked up a woman's purse from the floor. He dumped out the contents and sorted through them, then opened the desk drawer. He found what he wanted and brought them to Bella. Breath mints.

"Thanks," she said in a wry tone.

"It's not for your breath, it's for your stomach," he said. "Mint helps soothe nausea."

He glanced over at Alice. "Which way?" he asked her.

She pointed to the hallway between the soda machines. Jenks stopped and bought a Pepsi, which he offered to the rest of the group before popping it open and taking a huge swill of it._ Like a goddam commercial,_ Bella thought. _"After a hard day's killing_, _nothing refreshes you like an ice-cold Pepsi."_

Amun chuckled. Bella glared at him. She was used to Edward hearing her internal monologue, but it was disconcerting to know that her mind was an open book to Amun as well. And she was pretty sure he wouldn't stop if she asked him politely.

"Probably not," he agreed.

Bella popped a couple of the dead woman's mints into her mouth. He was right. They did help. She held onto his arm as he navigated the rest of the way through the room so that she didn't fall. At the entrance to the hall, she let go and fell back to walk beside Alice.

"Do we find Edward here?" she asked. Alice's expression changed as she watched whatever it was she saw in her mind when these visions came over her. Then she shook her head. "I can't see his future or yours. I see us leaving the facility, and he's not with us."

Bella's small hopes were dashed. She told herself she hadn't expected him to be here anyway, but still, a tiny hope had blossomed when she saw that this facility was larger than they had expected.

At the bottom of the slope, a hallway extended to the left and right. "Split up," Amun said. Jenks nodded. He took Collin and Quil and they headed down the hall, guns drawn, walking softly, though the whole place had to know they were here. Bella saw a camera and crushed it with her power.

They came to a door and Amun kicked in the door and held his handguns straight out in front of him as he entered the dark room. Bella pawed the wall for a light switch and finally found it. Alice and Esme followed her inside, clutching at each other. Neither of them belonged her, Bella thought. Alice had a gun but Bella was pretty sure she wouldn't use it.

At first glance, it appeared to be a medical facility, perhaps the clinic for the people who worked here, but on closer examination, its true purpose became clear. The stainless steel table had thick metal bands which could be strapped around the "patient" to hold them in place and the instruments were things that hadn't been used by real doctors in over a century. Bella pressed a hand over her mouth and stared in numb horror.

Amun went over to the small stand of files on the counter and quickly rifled through them, throwing to the ground what didn't interest him. Bella watched the papers flutter and they drew her eyes to the corner where something blindingly white was sticking out from under the curtain. Bella frowned and crouched down to pick it up. Her gasp caught Amun's attention. She held up a feather, a beautiful white feather with a pearlescent sheen. She held it to her nose and imagined she could faintly detect his scent.

"Edward's?" he asked.

She nodded. "He was here within the last twenty-four hours," she said.

Amun held up a file. "I think this is his."

Bella was so eager that her words tripped over one another. "What does it say? Does it say where he is? Is he okay?"

Amun's face held deep pity. "We've got his serial number. That's the important part. We should be able to find him on the server more easily."

"What does it say?" Bella insisted. "What are they doing to him?"

"Nothing," Amun said.

"Give it to me," she commanded.

Amun put a hand on her shoulder and she nearly slammed him against the wall, but she refrained. "Bella, there's just some things you don't want to know, all right? We're going to get him back, but there's no use in tormenting yourself in the meantime." He opened a chute on the wall which had a picture of a flame on it and dropped the file inside. "It's gone now," he said. "Incinerated."

"I ought to stuff you down that chute," she hissed.

"Probably, but why don't you wait until you've got your angel back?" He gave her a brief smile and steered her back toward the doorway. He checked the hall before leading them outside and to the next room. The lights were on inside. An office. He went over to the computer and pulled a screwdriver from his pocket. "Unplug this, will you?"

Bella followed the cord to the outlet and tugged it out. And then she saw something odd. The oak paneling above the socket didn't seem to be flush with the rest of the wall. She pressed it and it popped open to reveal a safe. "Amun, can you crack safes?" Bella asked.

He glanced up. "Not quickly enough. Rip the door off it."

She felt like a moron for not thinking of that herself. She concentrated on the line around the door and it fell off at her feet. Inside, there were a pile of CD-ROMS in jewel cases and what looked like a portable hard drive. "Jackpot!" Amun said. He took the items and stuffed them in his back. He had the case off of the CPU tower and now he pulled out the hard drive and stuck that in his bag as well.

They went back out into the hallway and met up with Jenks, Collin and Quil. "Empty," Jenks said.

"Damn," Amun muttered. "I'd hoped it would be close by. You told me the wrong way to go, Alice."

She shook her head. "I saw us come down this way first. And now we go down the hallway to the left."

They went back up to the office area which still stank of gunpowder and blood. Bella tried not to breathe as they passed through the room to the next hallway. But this time, they were in luck. At the bottom, they found a file room and the servers, back against the wall. Amun went to work with his screwdriver. Bella plucked a file out at random and opened it. The first thing she saw were photographs of a young man, front and side views, like a criminal, but over the image a word had been stamped in red ink: _TERMINATED_. And she was pretty sure they didn't mean he'd been fired.

She flipped through the pages. First, there were those forms that Dr. Snow had filled out on her abilities during the interminable testing phase. The young man, Embry, was a minor talent, a clairvoyant, barely a 5 on the scale. Then there was a medical history of himself and his family members back two generations. Bella puzzled over them for a moment, wondering why they would need this information. It didn't seem they were looking for psychic talent, just general health information. And then the next page answered her questions: serial numbers of sperm samples. And one of the samples had been used, successfully, on another test subject.

Bella dropped the file.

"Bella, what is it?" Esme asked.

It was a long moment before Bella could speak. "It's a breeding program."


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-six

..

"A breeding program?" Esme repeated. "But I never saw any babies, and none of the women at our facility ever became suddenly pregnant."

"No one ever asked me for a sample of my baby batter," Quil added.

Bella grimaced. "First of all: _gross_, Quil. Secondly, maybe we were the ones they didn't want to breed, for whatever reason. Or, for all we know, they could have knocked us out or something and harvested what they needed from us."

"I could have a baby out there somewhere?" Esme breathed. She sounded almost ..._ hopeful_.

Bella was about the answer when the room was suddenly plunged into darkness. Someone let out a short scream and there were a couple of gasps. Bella threw up a shield over their entire group.

"Which one of you fuckwads just screamed like a girl?" Jenks asked. He turned on a flashlight and so did Amun, a small penlight that he clenched in his teeth while he did whatever the hell he was doing with the wires and circuits.

"It was Collin," Quil offered. There was a thump and Quil yelled, "Ow!"

"We're about to have company," Alice said and a dim emergency light flicked on above their heads.

"Bella, throw up a shield, waist-high," Amun ordered.

She did and ducked behind its protection. She pulled the gun from her waistband.

"Amun, are you almost done?" Jenks asked.

Amun didn't get a chance to reply before gunfire erupted. Bullets punched into the files lining the walls and threw shreds of paper into the air like confetti. Alice and Esme both crawled to Bella and huddled around her, as if seeking protection. Jenks popped up from behind the shield and fired off four shots in quick succession.

"Nicely done!" Collin praised, his words almost drowned out by returning fire. Collin crawled up to Bella. "Could you put a hole in it about right here?" he asked, pointing to an area about chin-high. Bella complied and he took careful aim and fired.

She heard a man in the hallway scream in pain.

"Only half-credit," Jenks said. "He's still alive." The man moaned and called for help and Bella inwardly cringed at the pathetic sound. She hated this.

"Not for long," Amun said. He unplugged all of his gear and stuffed it back inside his bag. "Let's go," he said. They all surged to their feet and followed him outside the door into the hallway. Amun drew one of his pistols and fired off a shot without even looking and the man who had been moaning fell abruptly silent. They went back up the slope to the office area and as they reached the top, Amun suddenly grabbed Bella around the waist and spun around so that her back was to the wall. "Burn it, Quill," he said.

Quil focused on the room below and it exploded into an inferno which poured back up out of the hallway. A wall of fire burst out of the hallway and Quil stood in the midst of it, untouched by the flames. The scorching heat made Bella hide her face against Amun and he took the opportunity to wrap his arms around her.

"Quil, stop, you're done!" Jenks shouted.

Quil spread his arms and his head fell back. The flames curled and wrapped around him, dancing along the surface of his skin.

"Quil, goddamit, _stop_!" Collin roared, and threw one of his empty clips at him.

It seemed to snap Quil out of his trance. He dropped his arms and the flames vanished. He was breathing hard, his face soft and dreamy with pleasure.

"We're done," said Jenks. "Let's get out of here."

"Fuck that," Collin retorted. "We gotta clean the rest of this place out and make sure there aren't any captives."

"That was not part of the mission," Jenks said. "What the fuck are we going to do with them if we do find anyone? We can't fit more into the Stryker, and we can't just leave 'em in the middle of the desert and say, _'Best of luck. Vegas is about ninety miles that-a-way'._"

"I'm with Collin," Quil said. "Even if we don't find any more captives, we need need to clear this place out and then destroy it."

Jenks turned to Bella. "Your call."

She swallowed. If they went onward, they would doubtlessly kill more people, but what if there were Gifted impassioned in here? She'd never forgive herself for abandoning them to their fate. "We finish the rest of it," she said, in a voice that didn't sound like her own.

"That's my girl," Amun praised. He snapped a fresh magazine into the butt of his handguns.

The office seemed to be the central hub of this facility. All of the hallways led out of it. They went down another incline and entered a long hallway with equally spaced doorways. Amun and Jenks spun into each, calling "Clear!" when they ascertained that a room was empty. And it was easy to see that they were: each contained only a bed with sheets and a blanket folded neatly at the foot, and more troubling, a crib. None of the rooms seemed occupied. There were no personal items, no clothing hanging on the rod in the closet nook, no pictures on the walls, nothing that would indicate any residents. The paint smelled fresh and the carpet was so new that there was still fuzz around the edges where it had been cut during installation.

There was a set of swinging double doors at the end of the hall and both Jenks and Amun put their backs to the wall beside it. They nodded at each other and then, in a choreographed dance, spun and kicked them open, striding in with their guns held out. The doors swung shut behind them, but Bella heard Jenks clearly: "Jesus ... Fucking ... _Christ_!"

She ran in after them and stopped so suddenly that she skidded across the linoleum. Amun caught her arm before she could fall. She pressed her hands to her mouth. Alice and Esme were right behind them, Collin and Quil bringing up the rear. Quil actually dropped his guns when he saw what was in the room. They hit the floor with a clatter.

"The breeding program," Bella said, unnecessarily.

The room was full of hospital beds. A line of them along each wall and beds placed head-to-head in the center, forming two more aisles. Each was occupied by a woman, all of them in various stages of pregnancy, and all of them were connected to respirators, IVs, feeding tubes, catheters ... Their heads were shaved and they all wore white paper gowns.

"They're _dead_," Esme choked out.

"What?" Jenks turned to her.

"All of them," Esme whispered, her face a shade of ghastly gray-white. She grabbed onto one of the beds' rails to support herself. "They're all dead."

"What do you mean?" Quil pointed to one of the monitors. "That's a heart-reader, or whatever you call it. I've seen 'em on hospital shows. Her heart is beating."

Esme shook her head. "Her _body_ may be alive, but she's dead. Brain dead, soul departed. The machines keep her body alive, but she's not in there."

Jenks looked very uncomfortable. "How can you tell?"

"No aura," Esme said. Her eyes filled with tears of pity and she picked up the pale, limp hand of the woman who lay in the bed she had clutched for support. She squeezed it gently and then laid it on the woman's distended stomach.

"_Victoria_!" Amun shouted. He ran over to one of the beds and grasped the woman's shoulders. Her head fell back as he lifted her into an embrace and even from across the room, Bella could see the bright red stubble on her head. Amun held her for a moment, his eyes closed.

"I thought she was dead," Bella blurted.

"She _is_ dead," Esme insisted.

Amun leaned down and kissed Victoria's forehead. He whispered something in her ear. Then, he reached over and flipped the switch on her ventilator. Her chest, which had been arching sharply with the push and pull of the ventilator, went still.

"What are you doing?" Collin shouted. He ran over and tried to reach for the machine. Amun shoved his hands away and began to gently remove the tubes from Victoria's body.

"I'm letting her go," Amun said. He cupped her cheek in his hand and traced his thumb over her bottom lip. "She wouldn't have wanted to be kept alive like this."

"But what about her baby?"

"I doubt it's hers," Amun said shortly. "She's being used as an incubator for whatever sort of fucking monsters this place was cooking up. That's not a baby in there. It's a science experiment."

"No," Esme protested, but whatever she was about to say next was cut off by a gunshot. The bullet slammed into one of the monitoring machines and it exploded in a shower of sparks. Bella cast a shield over the group just as three guards charged into the room, guns blazing. Several of the pregnant women were hit and alarms went off. Alice screamed in horror when she saw blood ooze from a hole in a round belly.

"This way," Collin yelled. He grabbed Alice up off her feet and took off with her toward the back of the room and another doorway. He kicked it open, one gun held aloft and a squirming Alice under his arm.

"We can't leave them!" Alice cried.

"We can't bring them with us. You want to roll each bed with its ventilator back to the Stryker?"

"Shield!" Jenks shouted after they'd turned the corner. Bella dropped it and Jenks opened fire. Collin dropped Alice on her feet and spun around at the sounds of stomping boots. Bella misheard and thought they were coming from the hospital room, not the hall and so she concentrated on keeping a shield over the door, with just enough of an opening for Jenks to fire.

"Collin, duck!" Alice screamed and it was too late for Bella to throw a shield over him. Collin was knocked down by the shot to his side, but he rolled over and fired at the guards coming down the hall toward them. Alice dropped to her knees beside him, calling his name. More guards came from the opposite direction. Too many. She could tell by Jenks's expression that they were in serious trouble.

She closed her eyes, just for a moment. God, how she longed to see Edward charging down the hall with his blazing sword in hand. "Cease fire!" she shouted, and rose to her feet. She covered their small group with her shield she spun on her heel and used her Gift like a blade, slicing it through the groups of guards, a lightning-fast razor whip. For a moment, she thought it hadn't worked, then she heard the wet slide and meaty thumps of divided torsos hitting the ground.

"Huh," Quil said. "Well, _that_ was pretty cool."

A siren began to blare and the emergency lights flashed red.

"Oh, shit, that can't be good," Jenks said. "We've got to go, _now!"_

Collin groaned as he heaved himself to his feet with an effort, one hand pressed over the wound in the side of his abdomen. Esme rushed over, her hands already glowing with her warm, healing light. Collin waved her away. "Save it. I'm fine for now. We may need you later."

They ran down the hallway back toward the office. A yellow and black painted steel door was descending from the ceiling, sealing off the incline.

"Bella!" Jenks shouted. "Stop the door!" He reached it before anyone else and dropped his rifle with a clatter. He gripped the edge of the door and strained to hold it up, but it inexorably crept downward. Alice and Collin ducked beneath, and Alice grabbed Esme's hands to pull her through. Quil braced himself beside Jenks and tried to hold on.

Bella tried to grab its edge with her Gift, but couldn't. She then tried to imagine a barrier beneath it, but the door sliced right through. She then tried pushing it up and the door froze in place._ So heavy._ Dear God, was it heavy. "Go!" she yelled. Jenks and Quil ducked beneath the door and Bella had to release it. It crashed down to the floor.

"Fuck!" Amun said. He turned on his heel, looking for another way out. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to Bella, and that's when she realized her nose was bleeding.

"Come on, this way," he said, and grabbed Bella's hand. They ran down the hall and back through the hospital rooms. Bella noticed that all of the respirators had gone silent and she started to ask him about it, since he had been the last to leave the room, but decided against it. They ran back into the hallway which contained the empty bedrooms, but stopped when they saw that it had already been blocked by a steel door.

"Not good, not good," Amun muttered. "Bella, listen, I have a bad feeling that we're about to see the self-destruct sequence from the wrong side of the door. You have to get it open, or we're going to be blown to bits."

"I can't," Bella said. "It was too heavy for me to hold."

"You have to," Amun replied. "I'll help you as much as I can. Rip the goddam thing out of the wall if you can't lift it, but we have to get out of here _now_."

Bella took a deep breath and focused. She needed her anger, she realized, and she let the thoughts she'd held back of what these horrible people might be doing to Edward, and what they had done to those poor women lying in those hospital beds. Rage boiled up inside of her and she threw it at the door. It bent in the center. Amun took her hand. "On the count of three," he said. "One ... two ..._ three_."

Bella rammed the door with everything in her and a fresh fount of blood poured from her nose. Her vision dimmed from the strain but she heard a loud crash and a _clang_ that seemed to reverberate in her bones. She felt Amun lift her in his arms but didn't have the strength to object. Everything, the sound of his voice speaking urgently in her ear, the feeling of his body shifting against hers as he ran ... everything was drifting away.

* * *

><p><em>She was alone in the dark. Bella wandered around but she wasn't sure she was actually moving. There was no landmarks to use to compare distance, no feeling of the earth beneath her feet, no sensation of wind against her skin. Was she dead? Would she spend eternity alone in this empty place?<br>_

_"You're not alone," Edward's voice said. She spun around but didn't see him._

_"Edward!"_

_"I'm here," he said, and his voice seemed to come from all directions. "I'm always with you, Bella."_

_"Edward, where are you? I can't see you."_

_"Look with your heart, not with your eyes."_

_She closed her eyes and then she felt his arms around her. "Edward, oh God, I've missed you so much."_

_"Bella?" It was Amun's voice. She tried to ignore it. Edward wrapped his wings around her, but it didn't muffle the sound as it usually did._

_"Bella?"_

_She groaned. "Leave me alone, Amun." Edward vanished and she cried out, feeling around in the dark for him._

_She saw Amun appear out of the darkness. He looked around, as if this featureless, empty place was interesting. "I've never been inside a coma before," he said._

_"I'm in a coma?"_

_He nodded. "Esme patched you up the best she could, but you blew some circuits this time. She's out of juice and says you still have some brain swelling she couldn't reduce."_

_"Oh. Tell her I said thank you," Bella said._

_"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more assistance to you. You should really be impressed with yourself, Bella. Those doors were meant to stand up to a nuclear blast."_

_"But we got out in time?"_

_"Barely, but yeah, we made it out."_

_"Everyone's okay?"_

_"Yeah, Esme is going to patch up Collin when she recharges."_

_"Did you find out anything from the server?"_

_Amun shook his head. "I haven't even looked at the shit yet. You were my first priority. You need to wake up now, Bella."_

_"I need Edward," she said. "He was here just a moment ago."_

_"That wasn't real, Bella."_

_"It felt real," she retorted._

_"If you want him back, you have to wake up," Amun insisted. "I won't look at the server's data until you do, and if we wait too long, they may move him. Undoubtedly, they know by now the server was compromised." He held out his hand. "Follow me, Bella. I'll show you the way out."_

_She wasn't sure she wanted to leave. At least here, in this world, she had Edward, even if it was only in her mind. She could just stay here, she thought, and slip away into death while in his arms._

_"No, you can't," Amun said. "Too many people are counting on you, Bella. If you love Edward, you can't just abandon him in favor of fantasy."_

_He was right. She took his hand._

She bolted upright in bed, gasping. The first thing she became aware of was the pain in her head, the world's worst migraine. It throbbed in time with her heartbeat and the light felt like two knives stabbing through her eyes into her brain.

"Bella?"

She struggled to focus her eyes and saw Esme beside her bed. She looked worried. Beside her was Amun, dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes.

"Thank God." Jenks was at the foot of the bed. He was wearing one of his loud Hawaiian shirts and the colors were bright enough to hurt her eyes.

"Does anyone have an aspirin?" she asked.

Amun fished a bottle of pills from his pocket and pecked one from the bottle. He dropped it in her hand. It was a fat, white caplet, and whatever it was, Bella was pretty sure it wasn't an aspirin. She tossed it into her mouth and dry-swallowed it even before Esme went over to a nearby table and poured her a glass of water from a pitcher. Bella looked around as she sipped it. She didn't recognize this room. "Are we in Vegas?"

Amun shook his head. "We flew back to Minnesota last night."

"Are Jane and Lauren-"

"They're fine," Amun said. "Jane's been worried about you, though. She'll be relieved to know you're awake."

"Please," Bella pleaded. "Go look at what we got from the server. Find out where they're keeping Edward."

"All right," he said gently. "Get some rest."

"I've been in a coma. How much more rest do I need?"

He just gave her a small smile and left the room. Esme sat down on the foot of her bed. "I'm sorry I can't do anything for your headache right now."

"Esme, I'm pretty sure you saved my life. Again. I'm not going to complain that you didn't cure my headache, too. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Esme replied. "Do you think you're up for seeing Jane?"

"Yeah, of course. Bring her in."

Jane burst through the door when Esme opened it and called her name. She flung herself down on the bed beside Bella and burst into tears. "Jane! Honey, what's wrong?" She'd never seen Jane cry. She'd thought that kind of emotion had been burned out of her by her experiences in the facility.

"I thought you were gonna die," Jane sobbed.

Dave hopped up on the bed. He was alarmed by Jane's tears, but delighted to see Bella awake and was clearly torn between whom to lick first. He decided on Jane and applied soothing licks to her hand. He looked up to see if it was working and wagged his tail hopefully.

"I'm sorry," Bella said. She held out her arms and Jane curled up against her. She laid her head on Bella's shoulder, tears still dripping from her eyes. Dave squirmed between them. Now that Jane was lying down, he could reach her face and he swiped his tongue along her cheek. Jane grimaced and pushed him away. "Stop, Dave. Gross!"

Dave turned his attention to Bella, and he wiggled in joy when she petted him. She scratched that itchy spot under his collar and Dave licked her hand enthusiastically.

"I'm going with you on the next mission," Jane declared. "I felt like I was going to go crazy waiting for you."

"Jane-"

"How would you feel, Bella, if everyone went without you?"

She had a good point. "It's ugly, Jane. There's death and blood and pain. I don't want you to have to experience that." The pill was starting to kick in, coating everything with a layer of dreamy softness. Her headache receded into the background.

"I'm not a little kid that needs sheltered from the bad stuff," Jane said. "I appreciate you trying to do the mom thing, Bella, but I don't need you to protect me from the bad guys." She paused and then said softly, "For a while there, I _was_ one of the bad guys."

"I don't want that for you," Bella told her. "I want you to be a teenage girl."

Jane shook her head. "That's not possible for me, Bella. And as much as you may want me to be a normal kid, I can't be. I love you and Edward for trying, but it's like we're playing house, you know?"

"I know." Bella looked down at Dave. He was lying between them with his head pillowed on Jane's stomach. "I just don't want you to be tempted. And I don't want you to see what happens if I can't resist that temptation."

"Whatever happens, I know you're a good person, Bella."

Bella wished she could believe that, because she was pretty sure she was going to do some very evil things to those who had stolen her angel.

* * *

><p>Amun tapped on Bella's door later that evening and came in to sit on the side of her bed. "I think I've found him."<p>

"Where?"

"There's a facility in Nebraska. From what I've gathered from the documents, it's an old Cold War nuclear missile silo"

"They seem to like being underground," Bella said. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. "Come on. What are we waiting for?"

"Plane is being fueled," Amun said. "The facility heavily guarded, and not just by normals."

"You mean Gifted?"

"They're part of the machine now, Bella. You can't think of them differently. They're loyal to the Theta Project."

"They're brainwashed."

Amun smiled. "You can't believe anyone would willingly choose the Dark Side, can you? Some people are just bad, Bella. Not because hey were tormented into it, or because they lost hope, or because they were somehow tricked into it. Some people choose it with their eyes wide open."

"You would know," Bella scoffed.

"Yes, I would," he said with refreshing honesty. "I make no apologies for what I am. And you'd be a hell of a lot happier if you just accepted yourself for who you are, as well."

Bella felt an icy dart of fear that he knew more about her soul than she did herself.

She was still thinking about it the next evening when they crept toward the site. Collin, still recovering from his wound, stayed behind and Alice and Esme elected to remain behind. Jasper, his eyes on Alice, had said he would stay as well and Bella's heart ached for him as he watched her fuss over Collin.

The silo was in the middle of a corn field. The site managers lived in the farmhouse and the barn had been converted into a large garage to park the staff's cars, hidden from neighbors who drove past the house every day and might wonder why there were always so many vehicles there. Amun nodded toward the house and said, "Later." He was right; the house wasn't important.

They made their way through the corn field to a tiny clearing in the center. The only thing visible from the ground was a round, flat cover like a manhole in a city street. Jenks took the crowbar he'd brought from his backpack and pried it open. Bella looked down the hole with trepidation. There was a metal ladder which stretched down into the darkness. she got vertigo just from looking at it and hastily backed away. Amun stepped down three rungs and then slid the rest of the way, holding onto the sides of the ladder. There was a long pause and then he spoke over the radio. "Clear."

Bella waited for everyone else to descend before she took a deep breath and stepped on the first rung inside the hole. Her palms were slippery with sweat and her knees shook. She told herself she had to do this for Edward. She crept down slowly, and found that it helped if she kept her eyes closed so she couldn't see the darkness.

"Bella, honey, just let go," Jenks called. "I'll catch you."

She shook her head though he probably couldn't see it. One rung at a time. _Hurry!_ she urged herself, but she couldn't force herself to move any faster. Her heart hammered so loudly she was certain the others must be able to hear it.

Her feet touched the floor and she gasped with relief. It was still hard to pry her hands from the ladder. She made the mistake of looking up and shuddered at how far away the hole appeared.

"Why is it so dark?" Jane asked.

Amun switched on a flashlight. "It could be a way of discouraging anyone who finds the manhole from exploring. Who knows?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a map. "Most of these silos were built during the fifties and they all followed a similar floor plan, but as we discovered at Yucca Mountain, the Theta Project might have made alterations."

They walked down a short hallway and stopped at a metal door. It had a keypad beside it and Amun punched in a code. There was a crisp, metallic click and the door unlocked. "I'm surprised that worked," Amun commented. "I would have thought they'd changed the codes once they realized the server had been breached."

"Maybe they're so busy fighting the virus that they don't realize the information was compromised," Jenks suggested.

"Maybe," Amun said. "And maybe it's a trap."

"I don't care if it is," Bella said. "If Edward is the bait, I-"

"Shh!" Amun hissed. They all paused and listened. Voices, coming closer.

"... wouldn't be compatible with a human, anyway. I tried to tell him that. It's the extra chromosomes. But until we get the computers fixed, I can't reply to his e-mail."

"I couldn't even sign in. Did Jim get the air pumpers fixed yet? We've only got a few more hours before we'll have to leave if he can't get them going again."

"It was damn stupid of them to put everything on one sys-"

Amun swung his rifle like a club. It caught the man who was speaking along the jaw and there was a sickening crunch. He dropped and Amun brought the rifle down on top of the other man's head. He landed on top of the first, both of them twitching oddly. Amun stepped over a pair of jittering feet and took a mirror out of his pocket. He angled it so that he could see around the corner. "Camera," he said. "Top right corner. Bella?"

"I'm on it," she said. She kept her eyes carefully away from the pair of bodies on the floor. She couldn't use a mirror to direct her talent. They'd practiced on the plane but she simply couldn't do it, and they'd had to stop because her headache was getting worse every time she used her Gift. Amun had given her another one of those pills and Bella had realized then how easy it would be to become a drug addict. The warm, dreamy sensation she got from them was very pleasant and it made all of her worries seem small and distant, except, of course, her longing for Edward.

Once she had a visual of the camera's position, she ducked back behind the cover of the wall and crushed it. Ahead, light spilled from an open doorway. They approached it silently. Amun held up his hand for them to wait and he crept up to the doorway and crouched beside it. He consulted his mirror and then held up three fingers. He pointed to himself and then to Bella.

She steeled herself. They had to be silent. There were too many guards to take on at once, Amun had warned. They would have to use stealth. She took a deep breath and held it as she peeked around the door frame.

Three men sat at a small stainless steel table with attached stools, eating from flat, stainless steel trays. They all wore blue overalls with the Theta Project logo in a circle on the back. Their names were embroidered in white script above the breast pocket. Bella let out the breath she'd been holding and did it. She killed them.

Amun put a hand on her arm and she shrugged it off. She didn't want his sympathy. She closed the door and stood. She gestured the others forward and they continued down the hallway. "Should be a control room ahead," Amun said, pitching his voice low. Sure enough, there was a doorway on the left. It had a glass window with embedded wire above and Bella peeked inside. Two men sat at the large bank of buttons and switches. One of them was smacking the side of a monitor that showed only static. And then she saw it: one of the monitors held an image of Edward lying on a cot.

"Bel-" Amun started.

She threw open the door and killed the guards without a pause. She pressed her hand to the monitor. _Edward!_ _Oh, thank God ... "_Where is this?" she demanded.

Amun consulted his map and shook his head. He tapped the label pasted to the top of the monitor. "There's no Sector C on my map."

"Come on." She turned to run and Amun grabbed her arm. "Bella! Slow down! We have to do this quietly."

"Fuck that!" Bella cried. "I don't care!"

He gave her a little shake. "Don't be stupid. You're going to get us killed."

She forced herself to calm. He was right. They had to do this carefully or some of their group could get hurt. She wasn't at full strength and Amun would have preferred to wait until she was, but Bella had worried they would move Edward and they wouldn't be able to find him again.

Voices again, and the others were still out in the hall! Bella darted for the door and struck down the people coming toward them without a thought. Her breath left her in a small, silent gasp when it occurred to her how easy this was becoming. No hesitation, no guilt, swatting them like flies. She couldn't look at Jane. Shame burned in her gut like acid. Why in God's name had she let Jane talk her into coming along?

Amun rolled his eyes. "Bella, you can wallow in guilt later. Right now, we have a mission to finish."

She followed after Amun, her emotions a riotous tumble. They had to be getting closer, she consoled herself. With every room they cleared, they had to be getting nearer to the one which held Edward. Her breath came in short, choppy gasps, almost sobs. Amun took them down the hallway to the left, the one which wasn't on their map. The first room was empty, an exercise room full of equipment. The next door...

"Edward!" she cried. She ran into the room, flinging the two scientists standing over him into the wall where they smashed like eggs.

"Bella?" he whispered. "Bella?"

"I'm here, Edward, I'm here." Tears streamed from her eyes. She bent down and kissed him.

"It's really you," he said, his tone that of wonder. He sat up slowly, painfully, and that's when she saw.

They had cut off his wings.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

..

Rage.

Her mind was consumed by it. There was no rational thought, nothing but burning fury.

She heard a rumbling but the sound barely penetrated the thick red haze that coated her mind. It was Jane who finally broke through to her. She was screaming in terror.

"Bella, stop! Please! Oh my God, you have to _stop_!"

The rumbling was her doing, Bella realized. Her rage had shaken the very earth and the room was breaking apart around them, the floor heaved and cracked. A huge chunk of concrete crashed down from the ceiling and Jane shrieked, cowering against the wall, her arms wrapped over her head.

Bella somehow pulled it back. She trembled with the effort, and gradually, her mind cleared. She was in Edward's arms and he was shaking as well. Oh, her poor Edward! So broken and wounded. She gently kissed his bruised lips, wishing that she had Esme's power to take the pain into herself.

"Your _wings_," she mourned. "Oh, God, _why_?"

"They thought it might make him mortal," Amun said.

Bella blinked. "What? Why in the world would they think something like that?"

Amun shrugged. "Movies, maybe. Legends. I've seen it before."

"You've seen people cut the wings off of an angel before?" Jenks asked.

Amun didn't reply. He watched her for a long moment and his eyes burned into Bella's. "There's a purity to it, isn't there?"

She understood what he meant. The rage was white hot, so immense that Bella was afraid of its intensity, like nothing she had ever known. This was a rage that would split a world in two. It swamped the joy she felt having Edward back in her arms, something she resented deeply.

She kissed him again and stood. "Jane, stay here with Edward," she managed.

Jane opened her mouth to protest and Bella quelled her with a single glance. Amun followed her. That was fine. He was the right for partner for this. The earthquake had sent the terrified residents and employees spilling into the hallway. They stumbled through the debris-filled hall, running for the ladder. One by one, Bella tore them down from it. None reached the top, dead before they hit the floor below. She turned and saw a group of guards who charged at her, their guns drawn. They took cover in doorways. It didn't protect them. She turned her rage on them one by one, ripping them into shreds with a glance as if her fury were a maelstrom razors. They exploded instantly into tiny shreds of blood and bone.

Amun dropped to one knee and fired at those who tried to take advantage of her distraction to make a run for it. Bella heard a soft sound and spun in time to throw up a shield to block a ball of flame thrown at her by a tall, slender African-American woman. Her beauty was striking, and as she wound up to throw another blast, she was magnificent, a goddess of fire. A work of art that Bella destroyed, and she did it without hesitation.

Her memories of the facility in the Arctic would always be fuzzy and indistinct. There would be no such mercy with the events in this place. The expressions on the faces of those the killed, the smell of blood which seemed to coat the inside of her nostrils and would linger with her for long afterward, the sound of shredded flesh dropping to the floor ... All of it would remain with her. And as with Jacob's facility, she felt no guilt, no remorse, no pity while it was happening. All she felt was the rage.

Amun opened the next door in the hall for her and Bella found a laboratory of some kind. Three people in lab coats huddled against the wall, the wall where ... Edward's wings were mounted on a wide table that was tilted to a nearly vertical position. A small drift of loose feathers lay below it.

She turned to the huddled, shaking group. "Did you do this?"

"It was Dr. Michaels!" one of them cried. She was middle-aged and plump. Her eyes swam with tears behind her thick glasses. "He gave the order."

"But you obeyed it?" Bella asked, her tone almost pleasant.

"if we didn't do what he said, we'd lose our jobs!"

"Your excuse for doing this evil thing is that you were afraid to face the unemployment line?" Bella spat.

"You have been weighed in the balances and you have been found wanting," Amun said. He shoved a fresh clip into the butt of his gun. "I'll hold them here if you want to return to do this slowly."

Bella shook her head. "I'd say they're headed for greater torments than I can devise."

She was suddenly felled by a crushing weight. She couldn't even breathe beneath the pressure. She tried to push against it but there was nothing to push and she tried to shield against it but that was equally futile. Her vision had gone dark and she couldn't even see her attacker to fight back.

She could feel her heart struggle valiantly but she knew it was over. And truthfully, she wasn't that sorry to go. Her ringing ears heard a struggle and then the crushing weight was gone. She sucked in a lungfull of air and the black spots receded from her vision.

Amun was locked in battle with a skinny young man, though neither of them moved. Amun had his hands up, and Bella recognized the gesture as something she, herself, unconsciously did when trying to shift a heavy weight or block with her shield. His face was red and Bella struck at the young man to force him to release whatever hold he had on Amun. She swung with too much power; the young man landed in a broken heap against the wall.

"I was handling it," Amun said sourly.

"What the hell was that?" Bella asked. "I've never felt anything like that."

"Nor have I. That was somewhat unique. It was as though he could squeeze you like an anaconda from the inside out."

She supposed it didn't matter. He was dead now. She felt a momentary regret that the Gifted-

"_Thomas_!" a girl screamed. She couldn't have been much older than Jane. She ran over to the crumpled body and knelt beside it. She gave him a little shake and patted his cheeks and then turned to glare at Bella. "You evil bitch," she hissed.

Bella flinched. "I'm not evil. I'm n-" The impact took her by surprise. She still had a bit of the shield she had raised to try to ward off the young man's Gift and that was what probably saved her life. She flew across the room and heard Amun shout her name. She hit the wall beside the huddled scientists and collapsed to the floor. Something tickled her neck and she touched the side of her head with a clumsy hand. Blood. Blood was trickling from her ear. She struck back at the girl and heard Amun's gun fire. The girl spun from the impact of the bullet and slammed against the wall from Bella's blow. Amun did not wait to see if the girl would rise again. He ran over to Bella and lifted her in his arms.

"Fuck," he said, and touched the blood streaming from her ear. "I hope to hell that's just your eardrum."

"I can hear fine," Bella said, and was surprised at how garbled her words sounded.

"We need to get you back to Esme," he said.

Bella shook her head. "Finish this."

"Bella ..."

She pushed herself to her feet. Her head swam for a moment and she had to hold onto Amun for balance. He nodded toward the three scientists, who were still huddled beneath the table with Edward's wings mounted on it like a butterfly. As she watched, another feather came loose and drifted toward the ground.

"You want to do it?" he asked.

She didn't care. He read her mind and saved her the effort of having to answer aloud. He fired his gun, three staccato shots.

"If we get those back to him before his wound heals, they can be reattached," he said.

"Really?" Her heart sang.

He nodded. "I told you, I've seen this before."

Bella had a sudden, terrible thought. "Amun? What did you do?"

He did not answer. He gently detached the wings from the table and handed them to Bella. She stroked the feathers for a moment before she folded them and tucked them under her arm. "Let's get these back to him," she said. "And then we take care of the rest." Her chocolate-brown eyes were no longer sweet. They were dark and burned like coals, filled with hate and rage.

"They have to pass the room Edward is in," Amun reminded her. "There's only one exit. Don't worry, Bella. None of those fuckers will escape. I promise you." He put an arm around her back to help hold her upright and they walked together back into the hallway. Bella could hear steam hissing from a broken pipe that ran along the ceiling and the lights flickered. A man came tearing out of the room across the hall and Amun whipped his gun up and shot him before Bella's muddled brain could even form the thought that they should be shielded. She put one up, but it kept wavering and falling as her concentration wandered. It was hard to focus her thoughts on anything.

When she saw Edward, her heart lifted and some of the hate washed out of her, melted away by his Light. Part of her wanted to fight to hold onto it, but the other, larger part of her just wanted to sink into his arms and bask in his healing love.

He saw the wings tucked under her arm and a soft sound of grief left him. Amun went over to a cabinet hanging on the wall and rifled through it, tossing what he didn't want carelessly on the floor. He found some rolls of gauze and white medical tape and grabbed them.

"Lie down on your stomach," he instructed Edward, who watched him in confusion.

Edward obeyed. His back was a bloody, raw mess, and Bella couldn't stifle the cry of pain that welled up witin her to see this horror. The fuckers hadn't even bandaged him. The room trembled again as that fathomless rage boiled up inside her.

Amun glanced up at Bella. "Position them," he said simply and Bella laid one of the wings in its proper place on Edward's back. Amun ripped off a long piece of tape and laid it over the ragged edges of skin, like he was taping together a torn photograph.

"You're fucking kidding," Jenks blurted. "_Tape_?"

"Would you rather I sewed them into place?" Amun queried. "Mind you, he'll heal so fast that the stitches will be overgrown, and his body will see them as a wound and try to push them out, and then then we'll have to cut them out."

Jenks winced. "Okay, bad idea."

Amun carefully taped the edges of the wound all the way around and then used the gauze to strap the wings tightly to Edward's back. It crossed in front on Edward's chest, a white "X" between his pecs. Amun went to another cabinet and pulled out a green scrubs shirt, which he and Bella helped Edward don. It held his wings flat to his back, helping to keep them securely in place so that the flesh and bone could knit back together.

Edward caught Amun's arm and Amun met his eyes squarely. "Thank you," Edward said.

Without breaking from Edward's gaze, Amun pulled his gun from his belt and fired into the hallway. There was a thud as a body dropped to the floor. "It wasn't for you," Amun said, his voice brusque. "It was for her."

Edward nodded. "Even so, thank you."

Amun turned away. "It would have taken time we don't have for you to regrow them. We need you." He addressed the room at large. "You guys stay here. Guard Edward. Bella and I are going to go take care of the rest."

"Just the two of you?" Jenks protested.

Amun looked over at Bella, who was practically glowing with the power of her fury. "That's all we need."

"No, Bella, stay with me," Edward pleaded. He started to rise and three pairs of hands gently held him in place. A sharp bolt of pain hit her heart. Of course he didn't want her out of his sight. That was natural after the trauma he'd been through, but she intended to make sure no one else ever had to endure that trauma.

"It won't take long," she promised. She kissed his cheek. "Rest and heal."

She followed Amun out the door and down the steam-filled hallway. Since visibility was low, he walked ahead of her, his gun held out at the ready. Bella started to shield them both and Amun said. "Just cover yourself. Don't waste the juice on me."

"I don't need you getting injured, too," she said.

He laughed. "Trust me. I'll be fine."

They entered a cafeteria, empty except for one woman who huddled below a table. Bella crouched down beside her. "Where is Dr. Michaels? Tell me, and I'll let you live."

"I- I- s-saw h-him go into t-the storage room."

Bella nodded. "All right. You can go. You don't deserve it, but I'll keep my word."

The woman scrambled to her feet and darted toward the door. Amun shot her in the back of the head and she dropped like a stone. "I didn't promise anything," he said. He met Bella's eyes. "As you said, she didn't deserve your mercy. None of them do."

Bella said said nothing. She stepped over the woman's prone body and returned to the hallway, Amun right beside her. Her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat and every sound was like a spike driven into her head. Their gritty footsteps seemed as loud as screams, but when Amun spoke, she had to strain to make out his words. "Living quarters should be on the right."

He put out an arm to hold her back and went through the door first, whipping his gun in a wide arc around the room. Bella saw rows of beds, dormitory style, each with a different colored blanket or pillow, small and somehow pathetic efforts at individualism. They each had a tunk at the foot of the bed.

Amun crouched down and looked under the first row and then the second. He held up four fingers at Bella and she flipped the fourth bed across the room and snatched up the person who'd been hiding beneath it. Bella would have killed her is she hadn't seen the gentle curve below the woman's shirt. Bella pulled it up and saw a pregnant belly. She dropped the woman on the bed next to her hiding place.

"Is that a real baby or one they cooked up here in the lab?" she asked.

"They're _all_ real," the woman said, lifting her chin. "Life is life, whether or not the embryo was formed in a lab."

"They're doing genetic experiments, aren't they?" Bella asked. "What happens to the ones who don't turn out as they'd hoped?"

The woman dropped her eyes.

"Kill her," Amun said. "And her monster spawn too."

"I can't," Bella said.

"I can." Amun whipped his gun up to her head and the woman screamed in terror, cowering back with her hands cupped over her face.

"Don't." Bella pushed the barrel of his pistol to the side. "I have a task for you," Bella told the woman. "You need to get a message to General Aro Volturi. Do you know him?"

The woman hesitated. "I've heard of him, but I've never met him personally."

"Well, now you will. You tell him that I'm coming for him. I _will_ find him and I _will_ kill him. And when I'm done, the Theta Project won't exist, even in memory. Got that?"

The woman nodded quickly. "W-what's your name?"

_"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds_," Bella quoted. "He'll know who I am. I am God's wrath, and he cannot escape it."

The woman's face was a sickly gray. "I understand."

"Good. Go. And you might want to give your career path a bit of consideration."

The woman scrambled away and fled down the hall toward the ladder. Bella watched her go for a moment and then followed Amun in the opposite direction. He stopped and turned to her and Bella was shocked at the raw emotion on his face. "I have to thank you, Bella. You've given me an amazing gift. Because of you, I now know that I can feel love."

She started to object and he shook his head. "You don't need to say it. I know."

She let out a shaky breath. "Let's finish this."

They found a bathroom and shower facility next. Water gushed along the tile floor from the pipes briken in Bella's earthquake. They found the storage room next. It was filled with boxes and Bella growled with impatience. She swiped her hand and the boxes in her path were swept by her power against the wall. She made her way through the room, tossing them right and left until a man in a white coat was uncovered, curled in a fetal position on the floor. He swiveled his head, startled to find that the box in which he had hidden had abandoned him.

"Doctor Michaels, I presume?" she said.

He had a Gift of his own and Bella felt it push at her barriers and she smirked. "Barely a four, I would guess."

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"First, I want you to tell me about your captive."

"What about him?"

"Everything. Start at the beginning."

He did, timorously at first, but then he became wrapped up in relating the tale of his experiments and his voice became enthusiastic.

They'd brought Edward in the night before last and the "security guys" had spent hours trying to make him reveal the whereabouts of the escaped Gifted. From Dr. Jacob Black, they knew that this man, who could become invisible and who showed up so strangely shaped on their infrared goggles, was partnered with Bella Swan, the Project's arch-nemesis. Dr. Michaels hadn't been part of the interrogations, but he knew the "security guys" had left disappointed. When he came in, the man was in bad shape, but he had healed so quickly that they could literally watch the flesh knit before their eyes. They had wounded him again and again to record the results, to document which kinds of wounds healed more quickly, cuts or burns, bruises or punctures. And then they had looked at the infrared images, thinking they might be able to get a base-level body temperature from them. That's when they had become curious about the strange shape of his profile. They'd felt his back (which had been against a table the entire time) and felt the strange, soft shape their eyes couldn't see. Shelley had gasped, "An _angel_!" and then they could all see the wings. (And that silly woman had afterwards refused to have anything to do with the experiments, much to Dr. Michaels's disgust.)

They had immediately sent his DNA for analysis and the lab had run it three times, unable to believe what they we're seeing. He was not human, and according to what they were reading, he shouldn't even be on Earth. Every other creature on the planet shared at least some of their genetic code, some beings more closely related than others. The man (or whatever he was- Dr. Michaels wasn't "superstitious" enough to admit to the possibility that he was actually an angel) was something never before seen. They put him under and took what samples they needed and were disappointed to find that he was sterile.

The man wouldn't tell them anything. No matter what they did he remained silent. Well, not _silent_. He screamed, but he wouldn't talk. And he wouldn't die. When it became clear that no inducement would get him to reveal the whereabouts of the others, the General had sent orders for him to be terminated, orders they attempted to follow but every time, he would gasp in a breath and his eyes would fly open. Gunshot, poison, exsanguination, stabbing, nothing worked. Word spread through the facility and nearly everyone gathered to watch through the observation window.

And then someone voiced an idea. Dr. Michaels didn't know who; he was the type of person who never recognized the contributions of others. Supposedly, if you cut off the wings of an angel, they became mortal. The wounds from the wings did not heal like the others had, which was very interesting, and they intended to explore it further, but he did not become mortal. The wings themselves retained the amazing healing abilities, except the area where they'd joined with his back that remained raw. He had noted some loss of feathers that could not be attributed to the injuries.

Bella grew sicker with every word he spoke. She waved her hand to silence him.

"Deep breaths," Amun told her. "Come on, Bella, breathe."

She retched, an empty sickness that brought up nothing and made her head ache even more fiercely. "You detestable ... Vile ..." She couldn't think of words strong enough.

"You are simply incapable of understanding the importance of our work," Dr. Michaels said. His voice held a hint of a sneer as if he were used to the ignorant peasants objecting to scientific progress.

"You're not a scientist," Bella snarled. "You're a little boy who pulls the wings off of a butterfly to see what happens."

"Why don't we see what happens when we pull off his?" Amun suggested.

Bella's hate was so intense that when she focused it on the doctor, he exploded into a fine mist. Amun was disappointed. "You should have stretched it out," he said. "He deserved to suffer."

"I didn't want to spend that much time with him," Bella said. "I want to go home." She needed to hold Edward. She needed to see if she could put him back together after this trauma. He would be different, she thought. An experience like this would leave scars that might never heal.

He was waiting in the hall for her. Bella broke into a run. He enveloped her in his arms and she wasn't sure which of them it was that was shaking so hard. Maybe both.

Why aren't you holding me?" he asked.

"Your back ... I don't want to hurt you."

"You could never hurt me, Bella."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tightly. She would never let him go.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

..

"Let me go up first," Amun said. "We don't know if these assholes were able to call in the cavalry."

"Cops?" Jenks asked.

"No, they wouldn't want to involve civilians out of fear of what they might see. If they called for help, it would be Theta Project troops, not outsiders. Unless they had security nearby already, we're probably in the clear. We've only been here for an hour, and from what I gleaned from the server, there isn't another Theta Project site within several hundred miles."

An _hour_? Bella, still wrapped in Edward's arms, was shocked. It felt like they'd been down here for an eternity. He moved and made a slight sound, a suppressed gasp of pain.

"Amun, give me one of your pills," Bella said.

"What?" Amun stared at her.

"One of your pills. I've noticed you don't go anywhere without them."

"Does your head hurt that badly?"

It did, but that wasn't the reason she'd asked. "For Edward," she said.

Amun reached into his pocket and tossed her the vial. She unscrewed the cap and took out one of the tablets. "Open," she command Edward.

"No, Bella, later, perhaps. I don't want to be unable to fight."

Bella saw grudging respect in Amun's eyes. She tossed the vial back to him and told Edward, "It's over now, honey. Go on, please take it. I can't stand that you're hurting."

He opened his mouth and she popped the pill inside. "Chew," she ordered. "It's going to taste awful, but it will work faster." No need to worry about him overdosing from absorbing it all at once, at least.

Edward did as she asked. She heard the tablet crunch between his teeth and he made a face she found absolutely adorable. "Blech!"

She pressed a kiss to his lips and he smiled. "That made it better," he said.

Amun gave a disgusted snort as he slung a rifle over his shoulder and climbed the ladder. Their group gathered below it, waiting. After a moment, Amun flashed his flashlight twice. Jenks headed up next, followed by Jane. Bella smiled at Edward. "Hold on tight," she said. "A real reversal of roles for us, huh?" She lifted them both up through the narrow shaft and settled them on the ground outside.

"The house," Amun said, nodding toward the darkened farmhouse.

"I don't care," Bella replied wearily. "I just want to go home, wherever that is."

She could tell that Amun was displeased with her answer but she really didn't give a fuck. "Fine, I'll do it myself," he snapped. He stalked off into the dark toward the house. Bella floated herself and Edward in the opposite direction, toward their concealed van.

"I can walk," Edward said.

"I know, honey, but let me take care of you for a little bit, okay?"

He laid his chin on her shoulder and nuzzled his face into her neck. "I was so afraid I'd never hold you again."

"Couldn't you hear me? I kept thinking about how we were coming to get you."

He shook his head. "I don't know if it was the drugs they gave me or my own fear and despair, but I was blocked from you."

"Oh, God," she whispered. It had been so much worse than she thought. It was a miracle he hadn't gone insane. She'd been pretty damn close herself.

"I was so worried about you, Bella."

She was pretty sure that it wasn't her physical safety that concerned him. She couldn't look him in the eye and was glad for the distraction of reaching the van. She set them down gently and slid the door open.

Jane opened the passenger door and Jenks darted for it. "Shotgun!" he called, and it was so incongruously cheerful that Bella could only stare at him.

"Fuck you," Jane retorted and pushed herself past him into the seat. She glanced back at Edward to see if he would object to her language, but he hadn't seemed to hear her.

Bella climbed inside and Edward followed. He eyed the seats and opted to kneel on the floor in front of Bella's seat instead to keep his wings from being bumped. Bella's heart broke a little bit more. He sighed softly and laid his head on her knee.

Jane twisted around and laid her chin on the top of the back of the seat. "Edward, I missed you so much," she said.

"I missed you, too," he said, but he didn't take his eyes off Bella. His pupils were huge; the pill must have kicked in. Bella couldn't keep her hands off of him, brushing the hair back from his forehead, caressing his face, memorizing him all over again with her fingertips.

Jane frowned and turned back around into her seat with a small huff. She was jealous, Bella could tell, but for Christ's sake, this was her angel and she had just gotten him back! Maybe she wasn't cut out to be a parent, she thought. She was too selfish. She wanted to hole up somewhere with Edward for about a month and let the whole world go to hell.

Jenks flopped into the seat behind theirs. "Damn glad to have you back," he said to Edward.

There was a burst of gunfire and Jane let out a startled little scream. Bella could see the house through the trees and the flash of the gunfire through the windows. She felt nothing but impatience to be on their way but Edward's eyes were full of sorrow. She looked at her soul in the mirror of his and pressed a hand over her mouth. Nausea punched her in the gut and she stumbled out of the van to the side of the road.

More of that empty retching as she had done after listening to Dr. Michaels. Edward was beside her, his arm across her shoulders, holding her, comforting her, even though he was the one who'd been put through hell. She let out a shuddering breath that became a sob, and he pulled her against him. He ripped off his shirt and bandages with impatient hands and tried to wrap his wings around her. It made him groan from the pain.

"No, don't!" she sobbed. "Don't!"

"I have to," he whispered.

It broke down the dam that held back her emotions: her grief, her guilt, her fear, her rage, her horror and pain. She didn't know if she was screaming or sobbing. Maybe both.

"Bella," Amun said from somewhere behind her.

"Not now," Edward growled.

She heard the crunch of leaves as Amun knelt next to her. "Bella." His voice sounded agonized.

"Amun, leave them the fuck alone," Jenks said. "Come on. Now!"

"But-"

There was a short scuffle, as if Jenks had yanked Amun to his feet. She heard Amun's protesting voice grow fainter and then the slam of the van's sliding door.

Edward tucked Bella's hair behind her ear and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead.

"Edward, I did some awful things," Bella choked out. "I- I did ..."

"Shh," he said. "Stop, Bella."

"I- I c-can't. You don't understand! You don't know."

"I do know, Bella. I'm in your heart and mind. I can see it."

"How can you stand it? You're so good and I ... It's happening, Edward. I can feel it. Bit by bit, I'm crossing over to the Dark."

"No," he said. "No, Bella, I won't let you."

"Promise me," she gasped. "_Swear_ it to me. The same promise you made about the Theta Project recapturing me."

He groaned. "Bella, please ..."

"_Promise me_!" she demanded. "If I turn, swear to me that you'll-"

"You won't."

She gripped his arms. "Edward, please! God, I can't take this. I can't trust myself any longer. I can't see the line. I need you to be my fail-safe. You're the only one who could do it, the only one I could never fight."

He closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped in defeat. "I swear."

She kissed him and whispered, "I love you," against his lips. And felt more evil than she had before.

* * *

><p>On the plane, Amun was glued to CNN.<p>

"- continuing coverage of the earthquake in Nebraska. Authorities say that it's the first quake of its magnitude in over eighty years, but so far there has been no official comment on the possible link between the quake and the deaths of over a dozen scientists at a seismic monitoring facility near the epicenter, or on the accusations that natural gas mine fracking in the area might have played a role. We now go to Johnathan-"

"Turn it off," Bella muttered. Her head ached fiercely and the changing pressure in the cabin had made blood trickle from her ear again. She lay across two seats and Edward was crouched in front of her, his brow creased with anxiety. He was wearing one of Collin's t-shirts, which Jenks had silently handed him when they returned to the van after Bella's breakdown, and it hung on him like a tent.

"How much longer?" Edward asked.

"Not long," Jenks said. "We should land in about a half an hour." Jenks regarded Bella with almost as much concern as Edward. "Listen, kid, I think you're really fucking yourself up. Every time we leave one of these things, you look worse. Esme can keep patching you up, but there's gonna be ... I don't know ... Scar tissue and shit. The kind of shit you don't want in your brain."

"I don't have a choice," Bella said dully.

"There's always a choice."

"What if this is what God wants me to do, Jenks?"

"If it needs done that fuckin' bad, I reckon he can find someone else to do it."

"I'm the only one who _can," _Bella said.

Jenks arched an eyebrow. "Gettin' a little egotistical there, chickie? You think you're the only one who could storm the castle?"

"Jenks, I really don't feel like getting into a theological debate because, in case you haven't noticed, my goddam brain is bleeding. Suffice it to say that if you feel that God has given you a task, you do it."

"Maybe God should do his own fuckin' dirty work, for a change. I didn't see him bendin' fuckin' backwards to help his own fuckin' angel when he was gettin' his _goddam wings ripped off._"

"Can't argue with that," she said.

"Maybe God did help me," Edward offered. "I didn't go mad, I somehow had the strength to refuse to tell them anything, I have my wings, and I'm back with my Bella. I got everything I prayed for."

* * *

><p>Finally alone.<p>

The plane trip and the car ride back to the hotel had been mercifully brief. Dave squirmed in delight all over Edward's lap while Esme tended to Bella.

"Just what's broken," Bella told her. "Don't worry about the pain. I'll take one of Amun's magic pills."

"No, I wasn't hunting," Edward said to Dave. "Yes, I know I smell injured. I was injured, but I'm fine now. Yes, my female will be better soon, too ... No, you didn't lose the winged-woman. She had to go home. Thank you for taking care of my female and my puppy. You are a very good dog."

Dave wriggled in delight and stood on his back legs to lick Edward's chin.

When the glow faded from Esme's hands, she looked debilitated, pale and shaking, her mouth pinched with pain. "Bella, you're causing damage to your brain. It's no longer just a simple broken blood vessel or two. This is tissue damage. I'm sorry I can't be more precise in my descriptions, but all I know is that you're hurting things I can repair, but not restore. Do you understand?"

"I undertsand. Thank you, Esme." She didn't even wait to get a pill from Amun, so eager was she to follow Edward to their suite.

And finally, _finally_, they were alone. Bella put one arm around Edward's neck and one around his waist, trying to avoid bumping his wings, but still aching to feel his body pressed to her own. His hands cupped her face and he traced his lips over her mouth, her cheekbones, her eyes, and then back to her lips for a kiss that brought tears of joy to her eyes.

He tried to remove his shirt and made one of those soft noises of pain. "Stop, we'll just cut it off," she said, and dug in the well-stocked first aid kit that Esme had made sure everyone had in their rooms. She found a pair of scissors and dropped them three times trying to lift them out of the kit. She finally managed to get hold of them, but fitting them into her hand to use them to cut proved to be extremely difficult. Her hands behaved as though she were drunk. She was naturally a clumsy person, but this was strange, even for her.

Edward's brow creased as he watched her. He finally took the scissors from her and then fit them into her hand properly. Her fingers fumbled and they dropped to the floor. He picked them up and tried again, only to get the same result. Bella simply couldn't make her hands work properly. Her right hand was worse than her left; her left could at least grip things competently, even if motor control was awkward.

"Bella ..." Edward whispered.

"It's probably just temporary until the swelling goes down," Bella said. She should have known better than to try to lie to a man who could read her mind and heart.

Tears stood in his eyes. "This is killing you."

She had no reply to that. He swept her into his arms and held her tight. He pressed kisses all over her face and then caught her lips in a kiss with a desperate edge. His hands pushed at her clothes as if he resented them for keeping her skin from his. He ripped his shirt in half, and hers fared little better. She tried to help, but her fumbling hands mostly got in the way.

And finally with nothing between them, they touched, licked, and kisssed every bit of flesh that had been revealed, relearning the contours, textures and tastes of one anothers' bodies. Edward picked her up, but instead of taking her to the bed as she expected, he pushed her up against the wall behind them. His first thrust was a glorious shock. Her head fell back and she gasped. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and braced her arms against his shoulders.

It had a rough edge which satisfied a hunger she didn't know she'd had. She met his wildness with her own, and no matter how tightly his arms held her, she wanted him to hold her tighter, to brand her flesh with his own.

"Hurry," he rasped, his breath hot on her ear. "I can't hold back."

It pushed her over the edge and she pressed her lips against his neck to muffle her scream. He groaned as he came and spread his poor, injured wings as he ground into her, straining to get closer. For a long moment, they clung together, savoring the last pulses of pleasure, then Edward carried her over to lay on the bed. He lay down beside her on his stomach and gave her a sweet smile with long, slow, sleepy blinks.

She snuggled against him, taking care not to bump his wings. "I love you," she said. "When you were ... gone ... I thought I would do anything, _anything_, just to be able to say it to you one more time." She looked up at the ceiling, smooth and white and featureless. "And I did things I never imagined I'd do."

He didn't reply. Bella glanced over at him and saw that he was sound asleep. She slid from the bed and went to turn the thermostat higher since she didn't want to pull the blanket up over his sore wings. She considered getting back into the bed with him, but she knew she'd never be able to sleep. Her head throbbed and her mind raced, replaying ugly images she would rather forget she had seen.

She went out into the living room and sat down. She thought his name and in less than five minutes, there was a tap at the door.

Amun gave her a sour smile as she opened the door. "You rang?"

"Can I have one of your pills?" she asked.

He took out his bottle and opened it, shaking a handful of pills into his palm. "Hurts that badly?"

Yes, it hurt, but what she craved more was the sweet numbness the pills gave. She wanted to emtpy her mind, not to care for a while.

Amun opened the bottle again and poured the pills, all but one, back into the bottle. He handed her the tablet. "You don't need addiction on top of all of your other shit," he said.

"Says the voice of expereince?" she asked. She went to the wet bar and poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the counter.

He was silent for a long moment. "Perhaps." He picked up the remote and turned on the TV and flipped it to the news channel. Bella took her pill and carried her glass of water with her into the living room, where she sat down in the chair.

"Can't sleep?" Amun asked her.

She shook her head. "I thought once I had him back-"

"Ah, Bird Boy isn't a panacea after all," he smirked.

Bella didn't respond. She stared at the screen and sipped her water, waiting for the pill to take effect. No one had died in the earthquake, thank God, but there had been property damage to buildings never meant to withstand earthquake, and many of them weren't insured for it. The newscasters played a series of revolving images: a brick wall with a gaping crack, a security video of a grocery store showing the cans flying from the shelves, a house tilting drunkenly against the foundation from which it had been shaken, a broken water main that had flooded a neighborhood street, a dog sniffing at a jagged section of pavement which had broken like peanut brittle when a section of it lifted.

Bella rubbed her forehead. How many of those poor people would be ruined because of the cost of repairing their uninsured property?

"Oh Christ, Bella, if it hadn't been you, it would have been a fucking tornado," Amun said in an exasperated tone. "Human beings are always dealing with this shit. They'll be fine, just like they always are."

"You are one of the most insensitive people I have ever met," Bella said. "And after the last few months, that's really saying something. You don't care about anyone but yourself."

"I care about _you_."

Bella groaned. "Not this shit again. I don't know what the hell your angle is, Amun, but I wish you'd move on to something else. You're not in love with me; you're not _capable_ of it. So back the fuck off before I lose my temper with you."

"Why do you think I busted my ass to get your fine feathered friend back?" he demanded. "I did it for you, because I couldn't stand to see you in pain."

"Well, my goodness, the demon is capable of altruism," Bella said.

His eyes glittered. "If I am, it proves I'm not a demon."

"And if you did it for that reason, it's not altrusitic."

He laughed suddenly and Bella jumped at the sound, harsh and humorless. "I just can't win with you, can I?"

"Don't say I didn't try to tell you. Why is it so important to you, Amun? And don't tell me it's because you've never loved anyone like you love me or some bullshit like that. Tell me the truth, for once."

He stood and paced.

"You can't, can you? You aren't capable of telling the truth, either."

Amun muttered, "I'm just not sure I want to. I don't want you looking at me like ..."

"Like what?"

"Like the monster I am," he said.

"I don't know _what_ you are. Were you being honest when you said you didn't know, either, or did you just not want to tell me?"

He didn't answer that, which, she supposed, was an answer in of itself. "I do care about you, Bella, and it is the truth when I tell you that I care more for you than anyone I've ever known. I call it 'love' because I don't know its name."

"What are you?" Bella demanded.

"Something unique," he said. "A guardian of the Gate."

She shook her head, not understanding.

"How well do you know the Bible, Bella?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. A little."

"Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve? They were driven from Paradise after they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil."

"Edward said that was just a metaphor for humans attaining sentience."

"More or less. After they were driven out, a _cherubim _with a flaming sword was set to guard the Tree of Life. Actually, what I guarded was the Gate between this world and the next, to prevent demons from trying to sneak into heaven."

"You're a _cherub__? _Like Cupid?"

He chuckled, but she didn't think he was amused. "Not exactly. The stories got muddled over the years. Did Edward tell you that angels used to come to earth and live with their humans?"

She nodded. She wondered if that pill was working better than it ever had before and maybe she was stoned out of her gourd, sleeping with Edward, inventing all of this in one of her crazy dreams.

"So many of them abandoned heaven to live with their humans, and so many of them subsequently failed in their duties that God closed the gate. And that was that."

"Wait, you're telling me that he _abandoned_ you?"

"I wasn't a heavenly being," Amun said bitterly. "I'm not part of someone's soul. I was created for one purpose, and one purpose alone. And that purpose was gone, but I still remain."

"There are no others of your kind?"

He shook his head. "I'm mentioned a couple of other times in the text and they even made little statues of me on the top of the Ark of the Covenant, but I'm the only one."

"You don't have any wings." The only representation of the Ark that Bella had ever seen was the one in that Indiana Jones movie, but she was pretty sure that cherubs were supposed to have wings.

"Again, the stories became muddled." He shrugged, but she could see the bitterness below the surface. "Even worse today where they combine both angels and the Cupid myth and call that a cherub. I was supposed to be fierce and terrifying. The Assyrians pictured me as having a lion's body with wings. I liked that."

"But you were created by God. That means you're good, right?"

He laughed softly. "Sweet Bella. So adorably simplistic! Don't you understand that sometimes God needs for evil things to happen in order for fate to play out properly? Why do you think demons are created? I am much the same, created to do that which creatures of pure good could not." He leaned over her, bracing himself against the back of the sofa with one arm. "And now that I have no purpose, I have created my own."


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

..

She was sitting on the edge of the bed when Edward woke. He'd been having a lovely dream about Bella and pancakes and syrup, but it faded from his memory as he looked at her. She looked bad ... very bad. Her skin was a sickly gray and she had dark smudges under her eyes. He would bet that she'd lost ten pounds during the time he'd been gone. He'd noticed that last night, that he could see her ribs beneath her skin and that her hipbones had poked up into his. Her headache was terrible, even with Edward taking half of the pain. He didn't want to admit it, even to himself, that something was terribly wrong with his Bella, but he was beginning to accept that she might not have the long, full human life that he wanted for her. He grieved for it already.

She must have heard him move because she spoke without turning around. "Did you know that Amun is a cherub?"

Edward sat up. "He's the Guardian?" The possibility had never occurred to him, but it made sense in retrospect: the ability to dampen the powers of those around him, the fast healing, the way he'd never quite fit into any of the categories that Edward tried to assign to him.

"Yeah, he said _'Guardian of the Gate'_, or something like that."

Edward raked his hands through his hair. "I had no idea." He sent a silent request up to the Highest One to equip future angels with the ability to correctly detect and identify supernatural creatures.

"But you know what a cherub is, right?" Bella asked. She blinked several times. Her vision was slightly blurry and she was trying to force her eyes to focus. He hoped it was just the extreme exhaustion she was feeling.

"I knew that there was one, created to guard the veil between worlds, but I never heard what happened to him once the Gate was shut."

"He said that God sometimes needs evil things done for fate to play out as its supposed to. Does that mean he's evil?"

"He wasn't created to be," Edward said. "Neutral, I guess would be the best way to describe it. If he's evil now, it's because he chose to go in that direction."

Bella shuddered. "The idea that he might have chosen to become evil is even more scary than him being created that way." Her thoughts streamed through his mind, her fear that she was making the same choice, that she was slipping down a sloping path into evil herself and her guilt over the ugly promise she'd forced from him.

"If it's a choice, he can come back from it." He hoped she would take this to heart and know that even if she strayed from the path, she could always return to it.

"But wouldn't being evil do something permanent to your soul? Like, damage it in some way?"

"Yes, but if he's the cherubim, he _has_ no soul."

"Dave thinks he's evil. The '_black man'_, he called him. So, what should we do? Use the Pup-O-Matic Evil Detector to see if he's still 'black' or merely a dark gray now?"

Edward pondered. He took the end of one wing in his hands and began to preen it. His back was sore and itchy where his wings had been reattached, but they were healing well. "It would take a while for him to come out of it," he said. "And evil can be addictive."

That sent his Bella back into thoughts of what she had done to the people that hurt him and he hastily spoke to take her mind from it. "He could change, with the right incentive."

"Incentive? Like what you said about Alice leading Collin back to the light? That he might change for her? I don't think Amun really loves me, Edward I think he wants me and he admires me, and he's calling that love."

"The cherubim was created without human emotions, or at least that's what I was told. It was intentional, to keep him from taking pity on those with sad stories who wanted to slip through the gate and to keep him from being distracted or weakened. If Amun really is the cherubim and he's telling the truth about his feelings for you ... I don't know what to think."

Bella rubbed her temples. He was carrying as much of her pain as he could, but it was still severe. Edward was grateful that there were no plans for today. Bella needed the rest. He was pretty sure she hadn't slept at all last night.

"I'll be right back," he told her, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Pants!" she called. Edward chuckled and pulled on the pair of sweatpants he took from the drawer. He had the feeling he might spend the rest of Bella's life on earth and still have to be reminded to wear clothes.

He went out into the hallway and knocked on Collin's door. He heard a rustle and then a soft giggle. Footsteps. Collin opened the door and stuck his head out. "What?"

"I need something for my Bella's pain, something that will make her sleep."

Collin sighed. "She's not doing good, huh?" He opened the door wider and Edward stepped inside. Collin went over to the red metal toolbox he used as a medical kit and began to rifle through it. The bedroom door hadn't been closed all the way and Edward caught a quick glimpse of a female form walking past the opening, a form he instantly identified from the tiny size and dark, spiky hair._ Alice._ She was wearing a man's t-shirt, and below it her legs were bare.

Collin held up a little glass bottle and poked a syringe into it. He drew out the fluid and when he had enough, he disengaged it from the bottle and tapped it with flicks of his middle finger. He pressed the plunger until a bead of liquid appeared at the top and then slipped a plastic cover on it. "This'll take care of her. It's the shit that killed Elvis."

Edward became alarmed. "I don't want-"

Collin cut him off with a laugh. "I'm sorry, man. It's slang. Just an expression, you know. It means '_this is good shit'_. It'll put her under for a good six hours and the painkiller lasts a couple more hours on top of that. I'll come 'round at ..." he glanced at his watch, "... around four o'clock or so to check on her and give her another hit if she needs it."

He took an alcohol swab packet from the top of the kit and offered both items to Edward. Edward took them. "What do I do?"

Collin shrugged. "It's intramuscular. Stick it in her arm or her backside about this deep." He pointed to a spot on the needle. "And then slowly press the plunger. Okay? Now I'd love for you to stay and chat, you being my favorite angel and all, but I'm really very busy." Collin nudged Edward toward the door.

"What about side effects?" Edward asked. He had seen enough drug commercials on television to know that medications sometimes caused bizarre and awful reactions.

Collin pushed him inexorably out the door. Edward looked dubiously at the syringe in his hand. "She'll be fine, I promise. I gave her this shit while we were on the ship and she was okay. Go on now. Shoo."

Collin shut the door firmly and Edward heard a feminine squeal a moment later. He wondered if she should tell his Bella about Alice and Collin. Alice wasn't the kind of girl to sleep with a man without feeling some kind of commitment toward him. He knew Bella would be disappointed. She wanted Alice with her brother, but Jasper had backed off when he saw Alice's interest in Collin. Edward had coaxed him to be more assertive and show Alice that he had feelings for her, but Jasper thought the battle was lost before it even started. He now watched her from the sidelines, ready to swoop in if she should need anything, but otherwise only a lonely shadow on the periphery of Alice's life.

Edward went back down the hallway toward his suite. Jane stepped out of the one she shared with Esme with Dave in her arms. She had a white plastic grocery bag in one of her hands. She wore a pink sweatsuit and a matching headband that made her look like the little girl she was.

"Hello," he said to both of them.

"Don't worry," Jane said. "We're going to the front of the hotel, right in front of the bellhop stand." Simultaneously, Dave was telling him about how Edward's puppy took him outside and then picked up his waste with the white crinkly thing and then threw it into various receptacles that had many interesting smells. He thought that Edward should be proud that she was protecting them by marking the boundaries of their territory with Dave's scent. Edward gave Dave an affectionate pat.

"Be careful," he cautioned Jane. "Maybe you should wait until one of the guys-"

"Edward, I'm not helpless," Jane reminded him. She glanced down at his hand. "What's that?"

"A shot for Bella, to help her sleep."

Jane nodded. "Yeah, she needs it. Honestly, I don't think she's slept since you were kidnapped, but that can't be possible because I read somewhere that people go nuts after just a few days' without sleep."

Edward gave Jane a hug. "Thanks for taking such good care of Bella while I was gone."

Jane flushed a little. "No biggie. Just make sure it doesn't happen again, 'kay?"

"'Kay," he repeated. He kissed the top of her head and Jane set off down the hallway toward the elevators.

Edward went the opposite direction, back to their room. He took the little keycard out of the pocket of his sweat pants and inserted it in the slot. No matter how many times he did this, he still enjoyed it. He yanked the card out and the light turned green. Edward grinned and considered doing it again, but decided against it because he needed to get his Bella her medicine.

He found her sitting in the living room, staring at the television. The Nebraska earthquake was still the top story. "Let me see your arm," Edward said.

Bella didn't object when he pushed up the sleeve of her t-shirt. He rubbed her skin with the little alcohol pad. He took the cap off the needle and pushed it into Bella's arm. She winced a little and it hurt his heart that he was the one to cause her pain, no matter how slight.

"What is it?" she asked. Edward withdrew the empty syringe and patted the tiny drop of blood that welled up in its wake with the alcohol pad.

"I don't know the name, but it's supposed to help you sleep."

"That's good," Bella said and turned her attention back to the TV.

"Bella, come lie down with me," Edward coaxed. "I want to cuddle."

She rose and shambled like a zombie into the bedroom and sprawled on the bed. Edward pulled the top sheet and blanket up over her and got in on his side. (He always slept on the side nearest to the door for her protection, so that any enemies would have to go through him to get to her.) She molded her body into his own, like two puzzle pieces joined, and they both sighed with pleasure.

"I think I'll dye my hair back to its original color," she said, apropos of nothing.

He nodded. "I've missed your hair. You always look pretty to me, but I like the real Bella the best."

She smiled and her eyes looked soft and dreamy. It was a look that he missed. Since she began using her Gift as a weapon, she'd been hardening herself, trying to insulate her soft heart. He hoped that when this was all over, they could peel off those layers she'd built up and she could be herself once more.

"You have to be the sweetest man alive. Do you know that?"

"I love you and I think you're the most beautiful woman in the world," he said with complete honesty. Bella had no idea how beautiful she really was. Deep in her mind, she still recalled the cruel taunts and put-downs from the kids at school. He wondered if it was a peculiarity of Bella's mind that she readily believed the worst about herself but struggled to give any credence to compliments, or if all humans were that way.

She was silent for a moment as she gazed at him. Her mind was such a whirl of thoughts that he struggled to follow them. "Edward, are you okay?"

"Sure," he said.

"No, _reall__y_, are you okay?" she asked insistently. "You went through a very traumatic situation. They hurt you."

"The worst part was being away from you."

"Dr. Michaels told me what they did to you." Bella's speech was a little garbled and she seemed to struggle to properly form the words. The drug must be taking effect.

"I wish you didn't know," he said. "I don't want you to have to think about it."

Her eyes filled with tears. "I can't believe that anyone could hurt you like that. It makes me so angry that-" She cut off and closed her eyes.

"I know," he said softly. "I could feel your rage."

"All of Nebraska felt it," Bella mumbled.

He kissed her forehead. "Sleep now, Bella."

She didn't argue. He felt a swooping sensation in his mind: hers tumbling into sleep. He waited until she was deeply under before he slid from the bed. He kept a mental ear cocked in her direction. She wasn't dreaming; she may have been too deeply asleep for that, but he wanted to make sure any dreams she had were pleasant ones.

He left their suite and went to Amun's. Amun opened the door before Edward could even knock. "I wondered how long it would be before you came down here. Come on in. I ordered breakfast."

Edward stepped inside and saw that Amun's dining table had been set, with two silver covered dishes waiting. Edward took a seat where Amun indicated and lifted the cover. _Pancakes!_ He slathered them with butter and dumped the entire contents of the small porcelain pitcher of syrup on top of them before he remembered his manners and said, "Thank you."

Amun looked slightly amused. "You're welcome."

Edward consumed three large bites before he said, "You are the cherubim?"

Amun nodded. He had ordered a rare steak and eggs for his breakfast but he poked at them listlessly with his fork instead of eating.

"What I don't understand is that you say you have feelings for Bella, feelings you're not supposed to be capable of having."

Amun sat back in his chair. "Trust me when I saw that I'm just as surprised as you are. An eternity of existence untroubled by sentiment, until now. I can't say that I'm particularly enjoying the change."

"Why now?" Edward asked.

"I don't know. I wish I did."

Edward gazed at him steadily and Amun's coal-black eyes didn't waver. Edward couldn't read him, couldn't determine whether or not he was telling the truth. He'd told so many lies about what he was that it was difficult to accept anything he said. Edward returned to his pancakes.

"I know she loves you," Amun said. "And I know I can't change that, as much as I wish I could. I envy you, which is also a new experience for me. I long for what you have. And I hate you for it."

Edward nodded. He speared the last bite and swirled it in the remaining syrup before popping it in his mouth.

"I'm going alone to take care of Aro," Amun told him.

"But you said-"

Amun waved his hand. "I'll find a new crew. Maybe I'll take Quil with me."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think Bella will survive much more of this." Amun tossed down his napkin on the table and dropped his fork atop his uneaten meal. He put the cover back over his plate and shoved it to the side. "Body or spirit."

"She thinks that this is her mission from God," Edward said.

Amun snorted. "Humans have a way of putting words in God's mouth and they often find that, coincidentally enough, the Almighty wants the same thing they want. Bella wants the Theta Project destroyed, not because God told her to do it, but because of her own feelings about it."

"How would you know?" Edward challenged. "Perhaps God_ is_ guiding her in a way he knew would work."

Amun's black eyes glittered. "She's going to die, Edward. And it likely won't be from a bullet or blade, but from her own fucking brain melting in her skull."

"From what I've seen in her memories, you urged her on."

Amun rose to his feet. "This conversation is over. I'm leaving in the morning. Tell Bella ... Well, tell her whatever you wish."

Then, they both heard a scratching sound at the door.

* * *

><p>The winged-man's puppy put Dave down on the grass and he began to sniff, looking for the perfect spot. It was a difficult choice. There were so many scents out here that he should cover with his own, the scent of other dogs, the scent of peoplefeet, even the scent of a cat. He had barely finished with his business when one of those metal roaring beasts with the sunshine eyes rolled up beside them. Its side opened and humans spilled out, humans with shiny-bangs. <em>Baddogs!<em> He knew it the instant he saw them.

The puppy screamed as two of them grabbed her, and Dave growled. The baddogs released her as soon as they'd touched her, clamping their paws to their heads and howling. They fell to the ground and one of them landed in the pile Dave had left behind.

One of the humans who stood behind the tall box by the den opening ran toward the baddogs, vocalizng loudly. One of the baddogs raised his shiny-bang and the sound of it was so loud that it hurt Dave's ears. The human clamped a paw to his abdomen where blood gushed and fell to the ground with that terrible stillness of deadthings.

The baddog pointed the shiny-bang at the puppy, so Dave sprang into action. He charged the man, barking as loudly as he could and lunged at his leg. He clamped his teeth down hard and the baddog yelped. He shook his leg to try to dislodge Dave. The puppy ran for the den and the man pointed the shiny-bang at her and the noise of it was deafening. The puppy fell down, blood soaking her flatfur.

The baddog kicked his leg so hard that Dave flew off and slammed into the tall, smelly thing where the puppy put Dave's waste. Dave flopped to the ground, whining. It _hurt_. He forced himself to his feet but fell back down when he tried to put weight on his front leg. It didn't seem to work any more. He saw the puppy rise to her feet and glare in the baddog's direction. Dave limped forward, growling his most fearsome growl. And it worked! The baddog clamped his paws to his head and screeched. All three of the baddogs were now on the ground, rolling as they clutched their heads. Dave was startled but proud. It _was_ a very ferocious growl, after all.

Dave reached the door and the puppy scooped him up. Dave whined at the pain of her hand on his ribs, and he fought the instinct to bite. The puppy didn't mean to hurt him. Humans had surrounded her, vocalizing in alarm. They tried to hold her in place and Dave growled again, prepared to bite more ankles. She pushed them aside and ran through the den, limping herself, leaving a trail of red dots of blood. He hoped the baddogs weren't good hunters.

The puppy took them into the magic box, punching her paw hard at the glow-spots. The magic box intrigued Dave because when the doors opened, they were always somewhere else, even though they had stood in one place. The doors closed and the puppy huddled against the corner, her chest heaving. She made odd choking sounds and water streamed down her face. Dave reached up and licked her face. It tasted like the Big Water where he had waited for the winged-man.

The door opened and they were in a different place, but here he could smell his pack, their dens all in a row. The puppy reached her own den and opened the covering that kept baddogs out. She put Dave down on the floor and opened the smallest den, the one where the humans stored their flatfur. She crawled inside and shut the covering. Dave thought she must have forgotten him because he was outside it. He whined and pawed at the covering with his good leg, but she didn't respond. He could hear the puppy's gasping chokes. It sounded like she was having trouble breathing.

So, Dave did the only thing he could do. The covering to the row of dens hadn't closed all the way yet. He darted through the opening and followed the freshest trail he could find for the winged-man, surprised that it led to the den of the man with the black aura.

Dave sat down in front of the covering and scratched at it with his good leg.

* * *

><p>Edward threw the door open and found Dave on the floor in front of it. He was holding one paw aloft. When he saw Edward, he stood up respectfully, but still held that paw up off the floor.<p>

"Are you hurt? What happened?"

_Three baddogs tried to take our puppy_, Dave told him. _But I growled and they fell down._ He showed Edward a mental image of the events and when Dave came to the part where Jane was shot, Edward scooped up Dave and ran for Jane's room. "You are a very good boy," he told Dave. "Good boy for coming to get me, and for protecting our pack's puppy."

Dave wagged his tail feebly.

Edward knocked on the door of the room Jane and Esme shared. "Jane! Jane! It's Edward. Let me in."

There was no answer and Edward's heart clenched in fear. He put Dave on the floor, backed up and slammed against the door, busting the lock and one of the hinges in the process. He pushed it aside and entered the room.

Jane was still hiding in the closet. Edward slid the door open an inch or so. "Jane, honey, it's Edward. I need you to come out so I can see how badly you're hurt."

"No!" Jane cried. Her terrified sobs were painful to hear.

"Can I come inside with you, then?" he asked.

Jane hiccuped and there was a long pause before she said, "Okay."

He slid the door open and crawled inside. Jane had her hand pressed to her stomach and her pink sweatsuit was soaked red. "Were is Esme?" he asked her, his voice calm but his insides a riotous jumble.

"S- she went t-to the d-drug store." _Hiccup._ "Sh- she should b- be back soon."

"Edward! What on earth?"

At that moment, Esme's voice was one of the sweetest sounds he'd ever heard. He backed out of the closet. "Jane is hurt. Shot." He spoke in a low, fast tone and Esme's bewildered expression became one of brisk efficiency, an expression one would see on the face of an experienced nurse dealing with a sudden influx of patients.

"I've got to tell the others; we have to get out of here," Edward said.

Esme nodded. "Go."

Edward dashed back down the hall to Amun's suite. He was still standing in the doorway, watching curiously. "Emergency evacuation," Edward said. "They know we're here. Jane was shot."

Amun whipped out his cell phone. "Grab Bella," he said. "Be on the roof in ten minutes." There was a sound of sirens and Amun darted over to the window. He peered out and punched at the buttons on his phone. "Make that five minutes."

..

* * *

><p>AN: "Better Angels" has been nominated for "Fic of the Week" at The Lemonade Stand. I'm awed, flattered and deeply appreciative to the person who nominated the story and anyone who voted for me.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

..

Edward ran down the hall, pounding on doors. Heads popped out into the hallway in his wake. "Evacuate! Five minutes! Get to the roof," he shouted.

"What?" he heard it repeated by multiple voices.

"They know we're here! We've got to evacuate! _Now_!"

Collin hopped out into the hallway, pulling up his pants. "Them cops outside for us?" he asked Edward.

"Yeah. Get Alice to the roof, as fast as possible." He wondered why Alice hadn't seen any of this. Was Amun still blocking her? Was it intentional, or just an effect of being around him?

Edward dashed into their suite and scooped his Bella out of the bed. She saw still deeply under. He paused long enough to grab their duffel bag full of money and then headed back toward Esme and Jane's room. They met him in the hall. Jane was pale, but ambulatory, still wearing her pink sweatsuit stained with blood. Esme was nearly as pale. She clutched her side and limped slightly as she ran. Dave bounded along behind them and Edward realized that Esme had healed him too.

"Thank you," he said and Esme smiled in return, though her eyes were hollow with pain.

Jasper caught up with them, his brows crunched together in concern when he took in the sight of his limp, apparently unconscious sister being carried in Edward's arms. "Is Bella okay?"

"Yes, she's fine," Edward assured him. "I gave her something to make her sleep. She needed it."

Lauren raced by them, a black duffel bag in each hand, to catch up with Jenks. She touched his arm and he smiled at her, his eyes warm and tender. They ran into the stairwell and pounded up the concrete stairs. Jenks wheezed and gasped after only a couple of flights. "Fuck me, I've gotta quit smoking," he rasped.

"You're out of shape," Collin chided him. He had Alice clinging to his back, her legs wrapped around his waist, and in one hand, he carried the toolbox that contained his medical kit, and the other held his duffel of money. His rifle was slung across Alice's back, and he had pistols stuffed in his waistband. "And, truth be told, you're pretty fucking old, too."

"I am not," Jenks huffed.

"You drink, you smoke, you don't eat your veggies. That makes you older than someone else your age. You're probably, like,_ sixty,_ if you're just lookin' at the wear and tear on your body."

"What the fuck ... are you ... talking about? Is that ... dog years ... or something?" Jenks gasped.

Amun, heading up the line of evacuees, waved for them to halt when he reached the metal door at the top. It had a crash bar across the center bearing the cheerful message_ ALARM WILL SOUND._ Jenks sagged against the wall, grateful for the chance to rest. He sounded like a vacuum cleaner with asthma. Amun quickly took care of the door alarm and shoved it open. They spilled out onto the roof, flat and covered with gravel that crunched beneath their feet.

Jenks looked around. "Now what?"

Amun looked over the edge and cursed, then looked at his watch and cursed again. He spun on his heel, scanning the sky. "... should be here," he muttered.

"Everybody here?" Jenks counted heads. "Where's that little fucking dog?"

"I've got him," Jane said.

Jenks eyed her critically. "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah. Esme fixed me." She may have been physically fixed, but he could tell that the mental trauma wouldn't be as easily repaired. Edward wrapped one of his wings around her and she hid her face in the feathers. It had been so heartbreaking to see her cowering in the closet, injured, crying, regressing to the time when she had first been taken by the Theta Project, her only instinct to hide, like a little child squirming under the bed to try to hide from a house fire. He wished he could lie to her and tell her that she was safe, that this same thing couldn't happen to her again. It troubled him that he could not offer her a life with the security and stability that children needed. He could say, "After we've destroyed the Theta Project," but he was no longer sure that it would ever end.

Forks took a peek down at the front of the hotel. He let out a long, impressed whistle at the number of police vehicles parked in front of the hotel.

"How many cops?" Jenks asked.

Forks scratched his head. "I'd guess _all of them_, Boss."

Jenks checked his pistols to make sure they were fully loaded and said nothing.

"Can you wake her up?" Forks asked, nodding at Bella.

Edward shook his head. "Collin gave her a shot. She needs to rest."

Jenks turned to Quil and pointed at the door. "Can you weld that shut?"

"Great idea!" Quil said. He trotted over to the door and ran his hand slowly around the seam. It looked like he was smoothing the metal out with his palm.

There was shouting from the cops below as the SWAT team charged into the lobby.

"I told them I'm holding hostages in my suite," Amun said. "That should slow them down."

They all anxiously searched the sky. Edward decided that he would have to take off and fly Bella and Jane away himself if their rescuer did not arrive quickly. He only hoped his wings were healed enough that he'd have the strength to carry both of them. He hated to leave their friends behind, but he had to think of Bella, had to think of their _family_, first.

Amun looked at his watch again and swore in three languages. He yanked his phone out of his pocket, but then they heard it: the approaching _thwum-thwum-twum_ of helicopter blades.

"Let's hope to hell that one is our ride," Jenks said.

"If it isn't, it will be," Amun declared.

Edward wondered how Amun intended to make that happen, but didn't get a chance to ask. The helicopter swooped between buildings and hovered over them, blasting them with the wind from its blades. It was large and looked rather fat, painted a dull army-green. Edward was excited, in spite of the situation. He'd never ridden in a helicopter before. He just wished Bella was awake to share the experience with him.

The helicopter touched down and they all dashed toward it, instinctively hunched over, though its blades were far above them. The sides of the helicopter were open and they climbed in quickly, everyone searching for something to hang on to.

"About fucking time!" Amun shouted at the pilot and slung himself into the co-pilot's empty seat.

Jane headed for the very back of the cabin and Edward followed her. There were no seats, so they sat down on the floor. He would have rather sat by one of the openings where he could see everything, but Jane needed him right now. He put an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him.

The helicopter lifted off and banked to the left. Through the open side, Edward caught a glimpse of all of the police, and like Forks, he was impressed with their numbers. A swarm of dozens of police cars were parked horizontally to the hotel doorway and the cops had taken cover behind them. News vans lined the street, and crowds of onlookers mingled on the opposite side. They all looked up, hundreds of small faces pointed at the 'copter. Edward spread his wings to protect Jane behind him, in case the police fired at the helicopter, but they darted away without being hit. Reflecting on it further, Edward decided that they probably didn't shoot because of the damage the helicopter would have done if it crashed into a building or onto a crowded city street. These were police, whose chief concern had to be the protection of the public, not Theta Project, who worried first about neutralizing the target and would worry about cleaning up the mess later.

Dave whined at Bella, laying in Edward's lap, so quiet and still. He took the opportunity to lean over and lick her cheek, something she usually wouldn't allow when she was awake.

_Hurt-sleep_? he asked Edward.

_No, just very tired_, Edward assured him. _Please cuddle with our__ puppy. She is very sad and needs love._

Dave took that responsibility seriously. He nuzzled into Jane's neck and then squirmed down and bumped her hand until she began to pet him. He licked her and wiggled around until she giggled and then he looked at Edward proudly.

_You are a very goodboy_, Edward told him, and further energized by the praise, Dave went back to work.

The flight was not long, but it took them out into a remote, rural area where there were no other buildings in sight. They touched down on a basketball court outside of a beautiful mansion that Edward thought looked a lot like the White House, though its exterior was built of time-mellowed brick. They climbed out of the helicopter, all of them with ringing ears and bones that felt like they were vibrating.

"What took you so fucking long?" Amun demanded of the pilot. The pilot removed the flight helmet and a long fall of curly black hair spilled out. Behind the large sunglasses, a delicate oval face with dark, slanting eyes had been hidden. She was lovely. Not as pretty as his Bella, but still quite beautiful.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I came as soon as I could."

"What's your name?" Amun demanded.

"Kebi ... Mr. Amun, sir." She dropped her eyes and her shoulders slumped in dejection. "I'm so sorry." She looked like a puppy that had been kicked and even an insensitive creature like Amun could not avoid being moved by pity.

Amun sighed. "I shouldn't have yelled at you. I'm the one who should apologize."

"Well, if you ain't gonna say it, I will," Jenks interjected. "Thanks, girlie. You saved our asses back there. Saved a buncha cops from gettin' killed, anyway."

"You're welcome," Kebi said, and Edward wondered if her voice was always that soft or if she was just intimidated by their rough-looking group. "Please, everyone, come inside for some refreshment." She turned to lead them inside and saw Jane and the large bloodstain on her sweatsuit. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

"It's not mine," Jane said, which Edward reflected was probably easier than trying to explain, "_I was shot this morning, but I'm perfectly fine now."_

Kebi swallowed a couple of times. "I- I have some clothes that might fit you if you'd like to ... freshen up."

"Thank you."

Kebi's eyes traveled to Bella's limp form in Edward's arms. "She's just sleeping," Edward told her.

Kebi nodded, her eyes wide. Apparently, she knew better than to ask questions. She led them through the front door into the house. Bella would have loved to see this, Edward thought. It was like walking through a time warp into the 1830s. Except for the electric lights and a few other subtle modern touches, the entire house was Federal style, down to the hand-painted wallpaper. Edward felt like he was in a museum, a sentiment which seemed to be shared among Jenks's crew because none of them "made themselves comfortable" as Kebi had suggested. They all stood around awkwardly, afraid that the spindly chairs might collapse under their weight.

Kebi returned swiftly with cans of soda and sandwiches on an ornate silver tray. Either she had a helper in the kitchen or she'd known in advance that they were coming. They weren't just slices of bologna between bread. They were sub-style with layers of cheese and meat, olives and onions and the like between French bread. But he supposed a house like this would have servants, even a cook, perhaps.

After she set the tray down on the table, (whereupon it was attacked by the men as if they hadn't just eaten breakfast an hour ago) she invited Jane upstairs to change. Jane looked between her and Edward and chose Edward, shaking her head and ducking behind his back.

"I'll go with you," Edward offered. "Jenks, will you please watch Bella?" Edward laid Bella on one of the little sofas and tucked a throw pillow beneath her head. There was a crocheted afghan occupying the back of a rocking chair. Edward shook it out and covered Bella with it. He tucked it around her carefully and then pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Yeah," Jenks said around a mouthful of sandwich. "I'll even save you one of these. They're awesome!"

The second floor was just as beautiful as the first, decorated with the same style of antiques. Kebi's room had a four-poster bed with a crocheted canopy and a cherrywood highboy set diagonally in the corner. She pulled open a couple of drawers and removed a jogging suit similar to one that Jane wore, only in dark blue. "It will be a little big on you," Kebi said, in an apologetic tone.

Edward took Dave out of Jane's arms. "I'll be right out here in the hallway," he told her. He saw her struggle against a spurt of panic, but she conquered it and he was proud of her. He smiled at her and went back out into the hallway. He leaned against the wall and stroked Dave's soft ears. _What do you think of her?_ he asked, Kebi's image in his mind so Dave would understand to whom he referred.

_She's an Omega_, Dave said with a dismissive sniff, and Edward understood what he meant. The least dominant of the pack, the one who was the lowest in rank, usually the runt of the litter ... as Dave himself had once been. Edward thought of reminding him of that fact but didn't.

Jane opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway and Edward smiled at her. "You look very pretty, Jane. Blue is a good color for you."

She didn't smile, as he'd hoped. She put a hand on her side. "I have a scar here," she said. "It's even worse on my back."

"Scars fade," he told her. "But if it really bothers you, we could talk to a plastic surgeon when you're finished growing."

Jane nodded. She tried to hold her head up, she tried to be strong, and she failed. She crumbled into tears. Edward drew her into his arms and met Kebi's eyes over Jane's head. His look asked for privacy and Kebi gave it. She headed back down the stairs.

Jane sobbed and shook. Edward knelt in front of her and pulled her into his arms. "I- I th- thought they were g- gonna t- take me," she gasped. "I was s- so_ scared,_ Edward. I d- don't think I've ever b- been so scared. I t- tried to run, b- but I'd left Dave, and then that awful m-man kicked him ..."

"Of course you were scared," Edward said. "That's only natural."

"B-Bella is never scared."

"Sure she is," Edward protested. "Jane, I can read her mind and emotions. I know she gets scared, too."

"She's so brave, though."

"Bravery isn't a lack of fear. It's being scared but doing it anyway." He knew he'd heard that quote somewhere, but he couldn't remember where, and may have mangled it in the process, but Jane seemed to find it wise. "I get scared, myself, especially when the people I love are in harm's way. There's no shame in it, Jane."

She kissed Edward's cheek and said, "Thanks, Dad." She had teasingly called Bella and Edward "Mom" and "Dad" a few times, perhaps trying it out in a joking manner to see how it would be received, but now she said it with deep sincerity. He kissed her on the top of her head and rose to his feet. "Let's go check on your mom." And hand in hand, they went down the stairs.

* * *

><p>Kebi brought in more sandwiches for the bottomless pit that was the crew. Jane took one; she hadn't eaten any breakfast. Edward sat on the floor in front of the sofa where Bella was sleeping. She had finally drifted into dreams and he was watching them closely to make sure he didn't need to steer them away from nightmares. Right now, she was dreaming of grocery shopping, in the produce section. She picked up a red apple and held it cupped in her porcelain-pale hands. <em>Sin. Temptation.<em>

He intervened. _Bella, why don't you have a nice, juicy orange instead?_

Bella dropped the apple and wandered over to the bags of oranges. The grocery store faded away and she stood at a roadside fruit stand in Florida.

Amun came over to stand by the sofa, where he gazed down at Bella silently.

"Are we waiting for something before we move on?" Edward asked.

"Yes. An ... associate of mine is coming to resupply us with the hardware we left behind." Most of Jenks's crew had thought to grab their weapons as they evacuated, but the Gifted had not. (And Jenks was in mourning that Esme and Jane hadn't thought to grab their duffel bags of cash, either.)

"We need to decide what we're going to do about the rest of the Gifted," Amun said. "We told them we would call them in a week's time if it was safe for them to emerge from hiding and our time before the deadline grows short."

"But it's not safe yet."

"It may prove beneficial to us if the Theta Project is scattered around the country, trying to collect the escaped Gifted," Amun noted.

"Decoys," Edward said. "You know that Bella would never approve of risking innocent people in that fashion."

"She doesn't need to know," Amun replied. "If we simply let the time lapse and do nothing at all, the situation will take care of itself. Jenks didn't create a mechanism for telling them to wait longer. All he provided for was a way to tell them it was safe to emerge and what to do if they didn't get the all-clear signal."

"If they hear Jenks or Bella telling them to wait, they will," Edward told him."Even if it wasn't part of the original plan."

Amun flicked his black eyes in Jenks's direction. Jenks was seated by the table, watching Kebi with a dazed expression. "I think that, ultimately, Jenks is more practical than you realize."

The front door opened and three men entered, all of them dressed in dark, perfectly-fitted suits. Kebi scurried over to the man in the lead and took his keys and briefcase. "Sam, you're home!" The man didn't so much as glance in her direction.

Dave, who was curled up beside Bella, pawed Edward until he had his attention and said, _Black men_. He used his nose to lift the edge of the afghan and crawled beneath it. He turned around so he could peek out from the safety of cover, his tiny black nose all that was visible.

Amun strode over to the new arrivals, his hand extended. "Sam," he said. "It's good to see you again." He ignored the men standing behind Sam, just as Jenks had once ignored the men who came with Amun to his house in Chile. Bodyguards, Edward supposed.

"And you, too," Sam replied, giving Amun's hand a brisk shake. "Kebi, where's my coffee?" he demanded.

"Right here, Sam," Kebi answered. She held out a coffee cup, balanced on a small tray. He took it and sipped it and then grimaced. "It's _cold_," he snapped, and threw the contents of the cup on her.

The whole room froze. The men of Jenks's crew had done some awful things in their day, but the Boss had one firm, unshakable rule: never, _ever_ harm a woman. If he heard of it, Jenks would kick your ass and _then_ he would kill you.

Kebi stood there, shaking, dripping, her head lowered in shame. The skin visible above the V-neck of her sweater was scalded bright pink.

"Move it, you dumb bitch. Make me another cup. Jesus!" He rolled his eyes and glanced around to the other men, as though to gather their commiseration, but found nothing but stony faces. Kebi darted away to do his bidding.

Jenks rose from his seat. "Where are our guns?"

"Already loaded in the van for you," Sam said. He realized he'd made a mistake and tried to cover for it. "Listen, I'm sorry you guys had to see that, but the bitch-"

Jenks shot him.

Kebi came through the doorway in time to see Sam fall to the floor, the top of his head splattered on the two men that had stood behind him. She let out a soft scream and dropped the cup and tray she carried.

The two bodyguards, if that's indeed what they were, were dumbfounded. Jenks still held his gun out. The one on the left raised his hands slowly in surrender. The one on the right reached under his coat.

"Not a good idea," Jenks warned.

"Afton, don't!" the guy with his hands held aloft said.

The man ignored them and fumbled for his gun. Jenks fired again and he crumpled to the floor. "Tried to warn ya."

Kebi cried out again. She pressed the heel of her hands into her eyes. "No, no, no," she whispered.

"Let's get out of here," Jenks said. He took Kebi's arm. "Come with us, honey."

Forks picked up the silver tray that held the rest of the sandwiches and took it with him.

Edward lifted Bella from the sofa. Jane darted over to the sofa and plucked Dave from it, holding him tightly to her like a shield. She stayed close to Edward's side as they headed through the kitchen. It was deserted, but someone had been cooking in it only moments before. A pot bubbled on the stove and on the counter beside it, someone had stopped in the middle of chopping onions. The knife lay on the floor where it had been dropped. Edward turned off the burner as they passed. He could hear frightened gasps for breath coming from the pantry.

Jenks opened the door to the garage and flipped on the lights. "Jesus tap-dancing Christ," he whispered in awe. A long line of shiny sports cars gleamed under the lights. Forks let out a moan of lust and ran to one of the cars. He reached out to touch it with a trembling hand. "Fuck me _sideways_. It's a Bugatti. A fucking _Bugatti_! Oh, please, oh please. Can we take this, Jenks?"

"Sorry, man. Everybody in the van." Jenks pointed at the large, boxy white van, the type preferred by delivery businesses.

"I'll drive right behind you," Forks promised.

"You'll stick out like a sore thumb in that thing," Jenks said. "Come back and steal it later if it means that much to you."

Forks moaned again, and Edward thought he was about to burst into tears. He dutifully climbed into the van, but he sat by the window, his hands and face pressed to the glass, like a little kid who'd fallen in instant love with a puppy in a petshop window.

Jenks opened the passenger door and gestured Kebi toward it. "Get in, honey."

Kebi obeyed, though she shook like a leaf in a cold breeze. Edward noticed Lauren's expression as she climbed inside into the first row. Her face was tight with anger and suspicion, not directed at poor Kebi, thankfully, but rather at Jenks who didn't seem to notice.

Edward took the very back row and Jane sat down beside him. He propped Bella's head on his shoulder and let her legs dangle off the seat. Jane picked them up and laid them across her lap so Bella would be more comfortable. Dave squeezed in between them and curled up into a tiny ball. He liked this spot: concealed between his three favorite members of the pack, their scent in his nostrils as he drifted off to sleep.

It was a tight fit inside the van. Ben ended up having to sit on the floor beside the end of the last row, and Esme ended up having to sit on Phoenix's lap, a situation she found very embarrassing, but he accepted casually, as if women used him for a chair every day.

Jenks opened the garage door, using the remote clipped to the sun visor. He backed out of the garage and then tossed the remote out the window. After a quickly executed k-turn, he drove down the long, paved driveway. He glanced over at Kebi. "You got any family? Friends?" he asked.

Kebi shook her head.

Lauren spoke up. "What are you going to do with her, Jenks?"

Jenks didn't answer her. He spoke to Kebi. "Was Sam your husband? Boyfriend? I'm sorry if you were, you know, uh ... _fond_ of him and shit, but I sort of lose my temper when I see guys hurt women."

"More like '_owner_'," Kebi said, tracing a pattern on the leg of her jeans. "He killed my boyfriend and then ... he took me with him."

"I ain't doin' the same thing," Jenks said hurriedly. "I ain't in the market for a girlfriend, anyway. I just wanted to get you out of there. I'll drop you wherever you want to go."

"I don't have anywhere to go," Kebi said.

"Well, uh ... I guess you could, um, stay with us until you decide what you want to do," Jenks said.

Lauren huffed. Alice, beside her, smiled and leaned forward to introduce herself. Kebi timidly took her hand. When they touched, Alice's eyes went wide and blank for a moment, and then her smile widened until it was a grin. "I'm really glad you're with us, Kebi," she said.

"All right, everybody," Jenks called. He stopped the van at the end of the driveway. "Next stop: Colorado. Any objections?"

The occupants of the van were silent. Edward looked at Amun, but he had apparently changed his mind about setting off on his own.

"So be it," Jenks said, and pulled out onto the highway.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

..

_Bella was in line at the Disney World ticket booth. In her hand, she held a large bag of oranges. She didn't know why she needed them, but she'd heard Edward tell her to buy them. "One please" she said, when she reached the window._

_"That'll be fifteen oranges."_

_"You can pay with oranges?" Bella asked._

_"Sure. This is Florida. You can pay for anything with oranges."_

_Bella began counting them out, but she lost track and had to start again, then she lost count and dropped the oranges all over the counter and the floor. She tried picking them up, but they kept rolling off the counter and there were so_ many_ of them. Oranges everywhere. She kept trying to count them ...  
><em>

_Bella._

Bella.

"Bella?"

She opened her eyes and recoiled instantly when she found Edward's face just an inch or so above hers. "Gah!"

"Sorry!" He backed away a few more inches. "I didn't mean to startle you. We've stopped and I thought I should wake you to visit the restroom and get something to eat."

"Where are we?"

"McDonald's."

"No, I mean _where are we_ and how did we get here?" Bella looked around herself, genuinely confused, not sure if she was really awake or not. Her head thumped with dull pain and she felt intensely thirsty, so she suspected she was really awake. But first things first ... They were in a large van, sitting in the last row of bench seats, in a fast food restaurant parking lot, the van occupying a space near the colorful children's play area. "I went to sleep in the hotel ..."

"We were attacked at the hotel and we had to evacuate. We've just crossed the Nebraska-Colorado border."

"Attacked?" Bella's voice raised with alarm. "What do you mean? Is everyone all right?"

"Everyone's fine now. The Theta Project tried to take Jane." Edward kept his voice low and soothing, trying to stem the panic he felt welling up in her. "She's all right. She was injured, but Esme - "

"What happened?" Bella demanded. "How did she get hurt?"

"Bella, calm down. Everything is fine now. You - "

"How did she get hurt?" Bella demanded. It was hard to catch her breath. Why was there no _air_ in here? Her heart was pounding, which made her headache worse, and the panic was building, swelling ...

The van's windows blew out. Glass chips coughed across the pavement and rattled off the nearby cars.

"Oops," Bella said faintly.

"That was impressive," Edward told her. "You even got the little windows in the back."

"Sweet bleedin' baby Jesus!" Jenks bellowed. He had just stepped out of the restaurant, a white and red paper bag in one hand and a plastic cup in the other. He dropped both. The food might have survived the fall inside the bag had the drink not landed on top of it. Jenks didn't even seem to notice. He was staring at the van. He pointed. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

"Oh no," Bella whispered and put her head down on the seat in front of them.

"What the fuck just happened?" Forks asked, without much concern. He took a slurp from his soda. Phoenix stood right behind him, munching on an apple pie.

"I'm sorry!" Bella cried. "My fault! I'm so sorry."

"I told you not to wake her up fast," Phoenix chided Edward. "Well, fuck, _now_ what do we do?"

"Steal another van?" Forks suggested, looking around at the options in the parking lot, of which there were few.

"Mom!" Jane tore out of the restaurant and across the parking lot toward the van. "Mom, are you okay?" She yanked the sliding door so hard that the van rocked on its hinges as she slammed it to the side. She jumped into the seat with Bella and Edward and threw her arms around Bella. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"You called me 'Mom'," Bella said in a small voice, and then burst into tears. Jane gave her a wobbly smile and then started bawling along with her. Edward held them both, wrapped his wings around them, and laid his cheek atop Bella's head.

"Forks!" Phoenix hit him on the shoulder as Forks wiped his eyes. "Are you _cryin'?"_

"No, asshole. I got somethin' in my eye. It was probably the onions or something."

Jenks finally found his voice. "I hate to break up the Lifetime made-for-TV-movie moment, but you broke our fucking ride, Bella. We can't drive that down the highway! Jesus!"

"Sorry," Bella said again. She accepted a napkin passed through the window by Phoenix and wiped her face. Jane took one herself and blew her nose. She trumpeted like a baby elephant.

Jenks kicked the sodden bag containing his uneaten meal. "Well, fuck. Unscheduled stop, people, while we figure out whether to fix this fuckin' thing, or steal something else."

"What has happened here?" Amun demanded. He carried a large paper bag and two drinks and held the door open for Kebi. She followed behind him, right on his heels, her eyes fixed on her feet.

"Who's she?" Bella asked.

"Jenks rescued her. I'll fill you in later," Edward murmured.

Jasper followed Collin and Alice. Alice seemed upset about something and didn't look at Collin as she strode toward the van. Collin seemed untroubled by it, whatever it was; Jasper looked more concerned than Collin did. Bella thought sadly that her brother was starting to look like one of the Fallen, the way his terribly sad eyes never left Alice, as well as the way he silently floated around on the fringes of her life, alone within his sphere of quiet grief.

"Bella had a power surge or something and broke out all of the windows," Jenks said. He swiped his foot through a pile of the broken glass and scattered it across the blacktop.

"I'm really sorry," Bella told him.

"I know you are." Jenks sighed and tossed his hands. "All right. What do we do now?"

"We leave before someone calls the police to report the broken windows," Amun said. "Kebi, get in," he directed. She obeyed instantly and he took a seat beside her. "Eat your food before it gets cold," he said and Bella was surprised at how gentle his tone was with her, even when he was giving her orders.

He passed one of the drinks back to Bella and she fumbled with the straw. She didn't remember the paper covering on the straws being so difficult to tear off. Frowning, she tried to pinch the straw between her thumb and forefinger and couldn't do it. The straw kept falling from her hand to her lap. Edward took it from her and pulled the paper off the straw before jabbing it through the lid. Bella held the drink between the palms of her hands and took an eager gulp. Sweet tea, the nectar of the gods. She drank half of it in a go before she had the manners to thank Amun.

Esme came to the back of the van with Edward and Bella and held Jane on her lap rather than sit on Phoenix's. "Aww, I was enjoying that," he grinned at her and Esme flushed a brilliant red. Phoenix was tickled by it and kept up a stream of increasingly outrageous flirting until Esme's face was purple and Forks leaned over to smack him across the back of the head.

Jenks drove them out onto the busy street. Even at 35 MPH, the van was like a wind tunnel. One of the bags of money hadn't been securely zipped and Jenks cursed as bills began took flight around the cabin. Phoenix and Forks hurriedly snatched the fluttering bills out of the air while Jasper quietly picked up the ones that fell off the floorboards. A few were sucked out through the windows and Jenks cried out as if he were in pain as he watched them soar away in the rearview mirror.

"I'm sorry," Bella said again. "I didn't mean to."

"We know," Jenks sighed. He turned into a chain motel parking lot.

"Surely we're not staying _here_," Amun said, aghast.

Jenks ignored him. He turned off the engine and turned around in his seat to face them all. "Okay, guys. We're about a hundred miles from Aro's home. We gotta decide if we repair this piece of shit or if we should steal new wheels, and whether we stay here tonight or get closer before we crash."

No one spoke for a long moment. "Comments? Thoughts? Dreams and aspirations?"

"I'd like to stay here," Esme said. Her voice trailed off when eyes turned in her direction.

Jenks glanced around. "Anyone else?"

"I'd like to stay," Edward spoke up. "My Bella needs more rest."

"Any objections?" Jenks waited a moment. "All right then. We stay."

"I'll take care of the vehicle problem," Phoenix said. "I ain't stole a car in a while and I should probably practice, you know. Keep my hand in."

"I'll go with you," Forks said eagerly.

"But surely we could find a better place than _this_," Amun said, and sneered at the neatly maintained little motel office as if it were an hourly-rate no-tell-motel.

"Oh, for chrissakes, you'll survive, ya fuckin' snob." Jenks slung himself out of the driver's seat and walked into the office.

"Aw, come on, Amun," Phoenix said. "What's not to love? Polyester bedspreads that are never washed, rubber-backed curtains and free local calls. You'll love it."

Amun turned his head and nailed Phoenix with a death-glare. Phoenix lifted his hands in surrender. "Whoa, just teasin', man. Yeesh."

Jenks came back out with a handful of key cards. He passed them out, seemingly at random. "We're all on the second floor."

"Wait, we're one short," Alice said. "Esme and Jane can probably squeeze in Kebi but that leaves Lauren without a room."

"I'll share with Jenks," Lauren announced.

Jenks looked startled. "Uhh, in case you haven't noticed, Laurie, I'm not a girl."

She grinned. "I noticed. Afraid for your virtue, Big Guy?"

"Well, no ... but ..." He worried his lower lip between his teeth for a moment and then shrugged. "Fuck it. Sure. But I warn you: I snore."

He drove the van around to the back of the motel. They all gathered in the tiny lobby and waited for him to return. Edward punched the button for the elevator and grinned like he'd won a prize when it arrived with a chime. He waited until the door had closed and then hit the button again, causing the doors to spring back open. Edward looked delighted.

Amun was closest to the counter and the desk clerk, who looked like she was still in high school, asked him timidly if he needed a wake-up call.

"A what?" Amun asked, his eyes hooded and haughty.

"A wake-up call," the girl said. She seemed to shrink under Amun's cold gaze. "You know, the front desk calls your room to wake you up."

"I know how to operate a clock," Amun said, scorn slathered on every word. Bella stomped on his foot and Amun gave a pained grunt. "Thanks anyway," Bella said to her, with a friendly smile. She stomped on Amun's Testoni loafers again and he added, "Yes, thank you."

Jenks came back into the lobby and Edward punched the button for the elevator again. They all squeezed inside, squishing those in back flat against the wall. Collin put Alice on his shoulders, though she had to bend over his head because of the low ceiling. Jane disappeared between bodies. Bella hoped no one was standing on her.

"I don't think you'll all fit!" the girl at the desk said.

"We'll fit," Jenks said, cheerfully. "And I like to think of those weight restrictions as helpful suggestions."

"Ow, my wing!" Edward complained as Jasper's shoulder jabbed into it. "You're rumpling my_ feathers_!"

"Bye bye, now," Jenks said loudly, to cover up Edward's words. He waved at the desk clerk as the doors slid shut.

"Ooh, I got it!" Edward said quickly. He snaked his arm between tightly-packed bodies until he reached the panel and pushed the number two. He leaned back with a satisfied smile. Bella put an arm around his waist and smiled at him and the others covered up grins and chuckles of their own, because really, it was nice to see someone get such pleasure from the little things in life.

The elevator groaned as it worked its way to the second floor. The doors opened and they all spilled out into the hallway. A middle-aged woman in a business suit was waiting for the elevator and her eyes bulged when she saw them pour out. "Like a goddam clown car," she marveled. "Are you guys in a band?" She eyed Collin's mohawk and Alice, perched on his shoulders.

"No, we're a cult," Collin replied and Alice giggled. Bella saw Jasper close his eyes as if the sound was a stab to his heart. Whatever Alice had been angry about at the restaurant, she seemed to have forgiven Collin for it. To Bella's surprise, they entered the same room. She turned to Edward with eyebrows raised. "How long has _that_ been going on?"

"Since last night, apparently," Edward told her. He unlocked their door, but couldn't resist doing it one more time. "I found Alice in his room when I went to get your shot this morning."

Their room was cool and dark. Bella's head instantly felt a little better. She laid down on one of the two queen beds and kicked off her shoes. Edward brought her a cold washcloth to lay over her eyes and he filled her in on what she had missed that morning. There was a tap on the connecting door. Edward went to answer it and found Jane on the other side. Dave bounded through the open door and jumped up onto the bed beside Bella. He sniffed her and wagged his tail. Bella smiled at him. "Hey, Dave." She scratched his favorite itchy spot and he licked her hands gratefully.

"Esme and I are going to go to the strip mall across the street and get everybody resupplied with clothes and stuff. Do you need anything special, Mom?"

It still made tears sting her eyes, hearing Jane call her that. "No, thanks," she replied. "Come here, kiddo." Jane came over to her side and Bella sat up to give her a hug. "You be careful, okay? You have your cell phone?"

Jane nodded. She pulled it from her pocket to show Bella. "You call me if you need anything," Bella said. "Your dad and I can be there in a second."

"Okay," Jane agreed, and hugged her again, then went over to Edward. The top of her head barely passed his breastbone. He squeezed her and then rumpled her hair. "Get yourself an iPod," he instructed. "I know you hated that we had to abandon your old one."

Jane grinned. "Really? Thanks!"

She scurried out of the room, and Edward shooed Dave out with her. "We're going to make puppies now," he told Dave solemnly, and so Dave willingly went into Esme and Jane's empty room to curl up in the center of one of the beds for a nap.

"Is _that_ what we're going to do?" Bella asked with a smile.

"I certainly hope so," Edward said. "It's been far too long."

"It's been, what ... eighteen hours?"

"See?" he said. "Far too long. And last time, I didn't get to spend as much time as I wanted." His eyes glittered in the dim light as he tugged down her pants and underwear in one swoop. He knelt on the floor between her calves and began a trail of kisses up the inside of her leg.

There was a knock at the door and Edward muttered something quite un-angelic. Bella pulled her clothes back on quickly and he strode to the door. Kebi stood in the hallway with Amun behind her.

"I need to go out," Amun announced. "Please keep Kebi with you until I come back." He spun on his heel and marched away without another word. Bella and Edward exchanged glances. Kebi kept her eyes on the rug.

"Come in, please," Edward said politely. Kebi entered far enough to allow him to shut the door behind her and stood there, as if waiting for further instruction.

"Won't you have a seat?" Bella invited. There was a tiny table under the window and Kebi sat gingerly in one of its chairs. She folded her hands in her lap and waited, her head bowed.

"Kebi, you don't have to be afraid of us," Bella said.

Edward added, "None of us will be mean to you like Sam was, I swear."

Kebi nodded.

Bella tried another tactic. "How old are you, Kebi?"

"Thirty-four, ma'am," she replied.

"You don't have to call me ma'am. You can call me Bella. Where is your family?"

"I have none," Kebi replied.

"_None_? No one?"

"They are all dead," Kebi said softly. A tear plopped onto her folded hands.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry," Bella gasped. She jumped off the bed and pulled Kebi into a hug. Kebi sat stiff in her embrace and Bella quickly backed off, afraid she was making the situation worse. "I didn't mean to upset you, Kebi. I just wanted to learn more about you."

"There's nothing to tell," Kebi said, and her voice sounded weary, as if she'd gone through too many of these kinds of introductions. "I went to college here in the United States and while I was here, my family was killed in a political uprising. Not even my little sister - " Kebi bit off and twisted her hands in her lap. "I moved in with my boyfriend because I had nowhere else to go, no money, nothing. I did not know he was in organized crime until it killed him."

"Oh!" Bella said, as she realized what Kebi must be thinking. "We're not in organized crime. Well, Jenks is. And Forks. And Phoenix ... well, all the guys except for Edward and Jasper, actually. But I'm not and neither is Esme nor Alice. They're just helping me ... um ... do something." She looked over at Edward and sighed. If she stuck around, Kebi was bound to see things that would create questions and the last thing they needed was for Kebi to freak out at an inconvenient time. "We ... well, some of us ... We have special talents."

"Like what you did to the glass?" Kebi asked.

"Yeah, like what I did to the glass. Which was an accident, by the way. I'm sort of ... on a mission from God and the guys are helping me with it. So you may see some unusual stuff and I just wanted to sort of give you a heads-up so that you weren't, you know, scared or upset by it."

There was a rap on the door and Edward opened it to admit Amun. He had a package under one arm. Kebi seemed relieved to see him. She stood and went quickly to his side. Amun said simply, "Thank you", and drew her out the door into the hallway.

"Well, _that_ was strange," Edward said. "He obviously feels protective of her ..."

"Worry about it later," Bella said, and yanked off her pants. "Back to the puppy-making. Strip!"

"Your wish is my command," he vowed, and his clothes flew across the room in the span of a heartbeat. She'd forgotten how fast he could move when he wanted to. She was naked and on her back, her legs dangling over the side of the bed, before she could even blink. "Now," he said, settling into the same position he'd had before they were interrupted. "Where was I ...? Ah, now I remember. I Was right about _here_." He pressed his lips to a spot right below her knee and Bella jumped as though his lips were a live wire. She didn't understand his power to make even the most innocuous parts of her body into erogenous zones, but she was very, very grateful for it.

He parted her thighs and slid his hands down under the backs of her legs. He lifted them upwards and moved forward at the same time so that his shoulders fit under the backs of her knees. The soft down at the edges of his wings caressed and tickled her feet. And then she felt the soft slide of his smooth cheeks up the inside of her thighs and she groaned softly in anticipation. At the first glide of his hot tongue, she grabbed a pillow and stuffed it to her mouth to hold back the scream she felt rising in her throat. He stopped and tugged it away. "I want to hear you. Let me hear you, Bella."

She cried out and arched her shoulders off the bed when his lips closed around the bundle of nerves between her folds and she couldn't hold back any longer. Dimly, she could hear herself, but at the moment, she didn't care if the whole rest of the motel heard her too.

One of her favorite feelings in the world was the delicious sensation of his skin sliding against her own. He moved up her body and thrust into her with one smooth motion and then rolled them over and Bella found herself on top. With no clue of how to proceed. "Sit up," he rasped. She did and they both gasped at the new sensation. He held her hips in his hands and helped to guide them, but Bella was clumsy and awkward when she wasn't mindless with lust and kept losing the rhythm. She groaned in frustration.

He rolled them back over and muttered, "Maybe next time," and gave her the hard, deep thrusts that they both craved. "Harder," she gasped. "Please, oh please, oh God ..._ harder._"

"I'll hurt you," he demurred.

She writhed beneath him and dug her nails into his shoulders. "Please ... more ... oh, _please_ ..."

He gave her what she wanted and her eyes rolled back in her head from the almost agonizing pleasure of it. She didn't know if she could call what she experienced an "orgasm" because it seemed more a tsunami than a series of pulsing waves, an overwhelming, unstoppable surge of sensation that wiped out all rational thought, and she could do nothing but be helplessly carried along by its power.

When her mind returned from its unscheduled vacation, she realized that she was crying and Edward was gently stroking her hair. "I love you," she said. It was the only possible thing to say after an experience like that.

"We shared it," he said, in answer the to questions that she wasn't capable of asking as of yet. "Your pleasure and mine, our minds connected. We felt each other's pleasure, magnified by our own."

"I'm glad you felt it, too," she murmured. She wouldn't have been able to describe it to him, otherwise. He pressed a soft, sweet kiss to her lips. "Sleep, love. You need your rest."

She didn't want to sleep. There was too much going on and she had to ...

She opened her eyes. The room was dark except for a single lamp on Edward's side of the bed. He had his left wing extended and was preening its feathers, humming softly. He turned his head to smile at her. Bella sat up and stretched, yawning as she did so. She walked on her knees across the bed to take a position behind him and reached up to groom the small feathers on the base of his wings, the ones he could not reach. Fortunately, there weren't any broken feathers (she hated plucking them; as much as he claimed it didn't hurt, she thought it had to) but they were bedraggled in places and the vanes had split on several.

She tried to take a feather between her thumb and index finger but there was something wrong. She concentrated hard but she couldn't get her fingers to close around the feather's shaft. She frowned and tried with her other hand, which was a little better, but she still couldn't grasp it properly.

_The scissors. The straw._ A shaky gasp tore from her throat. This was bad, really bad.

Edward caught her hands in his and pressed a kiss to each one. "It's okay, Bella."

"No, it's not," she said. She took her hands from his and held them up in front of her face. She tried to make the "okay" sign touching the tip of her index finger and thumb together, but it didn't work. Her fingers simply refused to move like that. She tried touching her thumb to each of her fingers in turn and nothing seemed to be working right. Her fingers didn't move properly. The closest she could come was bending them all together to make a fist with her thumb inside.

She let out soft whimper of horror and Edward pulled her into his arms. "It's okay, Bella," he repeated.

"I can't help preen your wings any more," Bella choked out.

"That's all right."

"No, it isn't. You can't _reach_ ..."

"Shh ..." He rocked her and wrapped his wings around her. Safe white world. A ragged sob left her, and he held her tighter. "Shh ..."


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

..

Bella perched on the edge of the bathtub while she tried to unscrew the cap of the toothpaste. She concentrated hard on her left hand, the one that was a little more responsive, and tried to get her thumb and index finger to grip the little ridged cap. _Almost ... Almost ..._ The tube fell from her hand and bounced on the tile floor. Third time she'd dropped it. She sighed and picked it up. This time, she braced it against her thigh, and held it flat with her right hand while she struggled to pinch the cap.

Edward opened the bathroom door and took the tube from her wordlessly and removed the cap. He held the open tube out to her.

"I almost had it," Bella protested.

He didn't reply. Bella stood and approached the sink. Her toothbrush lay on the counter. Three tries later, she still hadn't managed to pick it up without dropping it. Tears of frustration stung her eyes.

Edward picked it up for her and squeezed out a strip of toothpaste on the bristles. From the _middle_ of the tube. She sighed. "I would have got it," Bella told him.

He held it out to her and Bella clenched the handle in her fist awkwardly. "You are _not_ brushing my teeth for me," she said.

She watched him in the mirror as he took a seat on the edge of the tub. She used the heel of her hand to tap the lever-style faucet and wet the brush. It fell from her hand as soon as she began to scrub it on her teeth. She swore. It had landed in the sink, propped over the drain by the sloping sides, so she was able to get her fingers under it and scoop it into her hand again.

_I can do this. I can!_ She started brushing again only to lose her grip on the handle. It clattered to the floor this time and she stared at it mournfully. The "five-second-rule" did not apply to toothbrushes and bathroom floors.

Edward left the bathroom and returned with a new toothbrush, still in its packaging. "Jane bought extras," he said and tore off the cellophane.

Bella blinked her eyes rapidly to try to push back the tears. Edward abandoned the toothbrush box and pulled her into his arms.

"I can do it myself," she choked.

"Let me help you," Edward whispered into her hair.

"I don't want you to have to take care of me," Bella ground out.

"Bella, stop," he said softly. He pulled off a piece of toilet paper and dabbed at her tears. "I _want_ to take care of you. That's what I'm made for. The more you let me do for you, the happier I am. It's my privilege, and the purpose of my existence."

She had a horrible vision of him having to tend to her like an invalid and a choked sob ripped from her before she could hold it back.

"No," Edward said. "Let me show you how I see it." He laid his hands against the side of her head and closed his eyes. An image flooded her mind, as bright and clear as though she were watching a movie. He gave her back the same vision she had seen, but she felt his happiness at being able to care for her, his joy in being able to do things for her, both great and small. No resentment, no impatience, for she was the focus of his world and he was happy to be able to demonstrate how much he loved and cherished her. The scene changed to one of her in the distant future, when her face was softly wrinkled and her dark hair had turned to snow, and he was still delighted with every moment he could spend caring for his Bella.

"I'm afraid," she confessed. "I'm afraid you'll see me as a burden." It was such a relief to be able to get it out in words. Why hadn't she told him sooner? He already knew it, of course, but just being able to voice her fears to him made them somehow smaller, somehow easier to cope with.

"It's not a burden. It's an honor." Looking into his guileless, sweet green eyes was a soothing balm to her heart, like lying down in the cool, soft grasses of a meadow.

He kissed her, the press of his lips soft and gentle. He drew back and tucked her hair behind her ear. He considered her for a moment and then his lips quirked in a mischievous smile. "And now, for my favorite part of taking care of you: _bath time_."

They ended up being late for breakfast because "bath time" took a lot longer than it should have, because he said he needed a lot of practice in this aspect of her care. They ran, hand in hand, to the Denny's across the street where everyone was meeting. The group had been seated at tables shoved together in the back of the restaurant and everyone glared at them over cups of coffee they'd ordered while they waited. Bella giggled and slid into a chair beside Edward. He couldn't keep a straight face, either. "Bath time" had been loads of slippery, soapy fun.

"Jeeze, did you guys oversleep?" Alice demanded. "We've been waiting for you for over a half an hour."

"We were having sex," Edward explained. "Bella was sad and needed to be cheered up."

"That'll do it," Forks grinned. "Cheers me up every time."

Bella covered her face with her hands. "Edward, remember that discussion we had about keeping certain things private?"

He blinked. "I didn't think you meant from these guys. You and Alice talk about sex all the time."

"You do?" Collin was interested now. Alice pointedly ignored him.

"That's different," Bella sighed. Things like these were difficult to make Edward understand because he hadn't grown up with the same prohibitions and taboos. He had seen them, of course, by watching her life, but they weren't engrained into his psyche the way they would have if he had grown up with them. Try though he might, he had trouble remembering all of the intricate and sometimes contradictory rules of human society, and his own innate honesty made it even more of a challenge.

"Jane is only thirteen, Edward." The teenager in question had shoved her earbuds in and turned up the volume on her iPod so loud that Bella could hear it from across the table.

He seemed confused. "She knows about sex. We had a long conversation about it the other day."

Bella gave up. She decided to move on to another topic, though her face still burned. "Forks, did you find us a replacement vehicle?"

Forks nodded. "I really think you'll like it."

"It was great!" Phoenix said, happily. "We even got to run from the cops. It was like the old days. Good times, man. Good times."

"I'm ... uh ... glad you had fun," she responded, because, really, what the hell do you say to something like that? Their transportation issue was one problem taken care of, at least. She glanced over at Jenks for his input but he didn't seem to be paying attention to the conversation. He and Lauren were deeply involved in a quiet discussion, their heads tilted closely together.

Alice, apparently, wasn't speaking to Collin again. She ignored him when he asked her to pass the sugar, so he reached across her and snatched it up, giving her a glare she didn't acknowledge. Jasper appeared to be offended on her behalf and sent Collin dirty looks from his place at the foot of the table. Whatever it was, he was on Alice's side, or maybe it was that he was Team Alice all the way and didn't care what the area of contention was.

Kebi sat by Amun, wearing a light blue silk blouse and a strand of pearls, which Bella knew weren't things that Jane had picked up for her at the strip mall. Well, that answered her curiosity about what had been in the package Amun had come back with from his mysterious errand last night. But why would he be buying Kebi fine clothing and pearls after knowing her for only a day? Amun himself was dressed in a beautiful dark charcoal suit, which seemed perfectly tailored for him, but that couldn't be possible, could it? Could you really get a suit made in ten hours? Bella supposed if you were rich enough, it was possible. Amun looked around the restaurant with curiosity. He prodded the napkin-wrapped silverware with the tip of his finger and examined his paper placemat. Bella would have bet the farm that this was the first time Amun had ever been inside a Denny's. But at least he wasn't giving that scowling, snobby sneer of his.

Their waitress approached the table with some trepidation. Bella realized what a motley crew they must seem: a handful of punk badasses, a guy in a loud Hawaiian shirt, a honey-skinned Middle Eastern couple dressed like they were on their way to lunch at the country club, a soccer mom seated next to a tiny woman with spiky black hair who looked like she had just come back from Burning Man, and a teenage girl dressed in a t-shirt that bore an image of Justin Beiber.

"Do you have pancakes?" Edward asked her eagerly, before she could even start her greeting spiel. He fluttered his wings a little in excitement.

"Sure. Would you like to look at a menu?"

"No. Just lots of pancakes, please."

"And you'd probably better bring two pitchers of syrup and a vat of butter," Bella advised her.

The waitress took out her pad and pen. "Do you all know what you want?"

Clockwise, they all rattled off their orders. Amun ordered for Kebi, though he insisted he only wanted coffee for himself. (He muttered "From a _fresh_ pot," when she had moved on to Jenks and Bella kicked him under the table.) Jasper didn't order any food either, which worried Bella. He had the same nervous stomach as his sister; any emotional upset would put them off appetite. She made a mental note to talk to him after breakfast, though she wasn't sure how she could resolve his situation.

Jenks waited until the waitress had left and then said, "Well, while you two were ... _occupied_ this morning, _some_ of us were getting work done." He tossed a sheaf of papers on the table.

"What's that?" Bella asked.

"Thank God for Google Earth," Jenks said. "We've got aerial views of Aro's property. They're not very clear, but they're a start."

Bella took the top paper, which was a fuzzy black-and-white image of a ... irregular shape. She turned the paper one-eighty to see if it would make more sense, but she still couldn't figure out what it was she was supposed to be looking at.

"It's the roof of Aro's house ... or compound, I guess you could call it."

"It looks like they just stuck rooms on wherever they would fit," Ben remarked.

Bella realized those little rectangles to the side were cars and finally got a grasp of the scale. "Why does he need so much space? How many people live there?"

"No clue," Jenks said. "All the information we've got is right here on this table."

"Aro doesn't let anyone live with him," Kebi said.

Jenks dropped his coffee cup to its saucer with a clatter. "You _know_ Aro?" he demanded.

Kebi's eyes widened and she quickly averted her face.

"You know him? You know Aro Volturi?" Jenks repeated. "Come on! Tell us!"

"Stop," Amun said, his voice soft but deadly. He turned to Kebi and his voice gentled. He spoke to her in a language Bella didn't recognize, but she responded to eagerly, as if her ears were drinking in the sound.

"Arabic," Edward whispered to her.

"Do you understand it?" Bella asked.

He nodded, but didn't say anything further. His eyes were intent as he listened.

Something Kebi said made Amun jump a little in surprise. He leaned forward and asked several emphatic questions before he sat back, looking a bit dazed. He repeated a question to her and swirled his hands around his head. She nodded. "Aro, apparently, did business with Sam. Kebi overheard many of their conversations. He ..." Amun paused. "It was he who kidnapped Victoria." He turned his head to gaze at Jenks. "It appears that I owe you a favor, Jenks."

Jenks nodded gravely.

The waitress arrived with two trays, one of which she balanced on a small portable rack before distributing the plates off the first. She put Edwards stack of pancakes down in front of him and he sighed with pleasure. He slathered them with a thick coating of whipped butter like he was icing a cake, and then upended both pitchers of syrup simultaneously over top of the stack, filling his plate to the brim.

Alice stared in awe, shaking her head. "I don't know what'll kill him first: diabetes or clogged arteries."

Edward pointed his butter knife at himself. "Immortal," he said around a massive bite of pancake.

Alice glanced at the waitress, who was still passing out their plates. "Oh, yeah, ha ha." She tried to pass it off as a joke, but fortunately, the waitress didn't seem to notice. She was making timid forays into flirting with Collin and he was responding rather enthusiastically while Alice fumed. Bella propped her chin on her hands. She wouldn't have imagined that this rather conservative-looking woman would go for a guy with a purple mohawk.

"I need to go to the ladies' room," Alice announced.

"I'll go with you." Bella pushed back her chair and stood.

Edward's brow crinkled. "But you don't need to use the bathroom."

The waitress cast him an odd look.

"Women always go to the bathroom in packs," Jenks explained. "It's, like, an evolutionary protection strategy, or some shit."

"That's right," Alice said. "The woman who pees alone gets eaten by a bear. Every girl knows that. Come on, Bella."

Bella kissed Edward on the cheek and followed Alice through the dining room to the small hallway by the kitchen.

"I'm gonna kill that man," Alice vowed as she shoved open the bathroom door. "He's such an asshole! Did you _see_ the way he was talking to her? He knows it pisses me off. It's the only reason he does it."

"I thought you were upset already when Edward and I came in."

Alice rubbed her forehead. "He's ... Well, he's not very considerate. I don't think he respects me much, to be honest. He doesn't care about my opinions or my feelings. I mean, just this morning he - " Alice broke off and glanced around as if to assure herself that they were alone. "Bella, does Edward push you to ... you know ... do stuff that you don't want to do?"

Bella blushed, but answered her honestly. "No, but he can read my mind, Alice, so he knows what I'm comfortable with. Maybe Collin doesn't understand how you feel. It could just be a communication issue."

"It's like Collin doesn't think I mean it when I say I'm not ... um ... you know, some things I ... well, maybe _someday_, but I was a virgin until just a few days ago. I'm not as ... _adventurous_ as he'd like. He thinks I'm just being coy."

"I'm not exactly an expert on these things, but I've seen advice columns that say it takes a while sometimes to work out what both partners want and need in a relationship."

Alice squirted some soap in her hands and began to wash them in the sink. "The thing is, he's like _It's my way or the highway._ If I get mad or upset about something, he just shrugs like if I don't like it, I can leave at any time, no skin off his nose."

Bella bit her lip. "Alice, do you love him?"

Alice shook the excess water from her hands and pulled some paper towels from the dispenser. She didn't meet Bella's eyes. "I thought I did. Or maybe I do. I don't know. Sometimes, when it's just the two of us, he opens up to me and it's like I see a different side of him, hiding beneath that asshole exterior. It's _that_ guy I want to be in a relationship with, not the shell he's built around himself."

"Sometimes the shell becomes a part of you," Bella said. "Sometimes, you get so attached to it that you can't take it off, even if you want to."

"Sounds like you speak from personal experience."

Bella nodded. "But I can't wear a shell with Edward. He sees right through to my heart and mind."

Alice sighed. "That sounds nice, to have a man who knows what you're thinking and _cares_ about it."

Bella washed her own hands. "Yes, and no. We all want to have a little hidden place in us where we can store away the parts of our past we're not proud of, or the less pleasant aspects of our personality. I don't have a hiding place with Edward. He sees everything, even the parts of me I'd rather keep secret."

"But he loves you anyway, even knowing everything about you."

Bella chuckled and pulled some paper towels from the dispenser. "I think he's a bit biased."

"I wish ..." Alice sighed again. "Collin won't ever be as sweet to me as Edward is with you."

"No, I don't think 'sweet' is part of Collin's personality." Bella hugged her. "I wish I could give you better advice, Alice, but I'm pretty new to this relationship thing, myself."

"Had you ever ... _you know_ ... before Edward?"

Bela felt her face heat up. "No. But I'm glad, actually. I'm glad he was my first, my only."

Alice's eyes filled with tears and she pressed a hand over her mouth to try to hold back the loud sob that tore through her.

"Alice, what's wrong?"

But Alice only shook her head. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths until she had regained her composure."Lets go," she said. "Our breakfast is getting cold."

Edward stood when he spotted Alice and Bella weaving their way through the dining room back to the table. He held Bella's chair for her. Alice stared pointedly at Collin but he only continued munching on a strip of bacon, his eyes on the aerial photo. Alice sighed and shoved her untouched plate away.

"You ain't gonna eat that?" Forks asked, eying her bacon.

"No."

"Can I - ?"

"Knock yourself out," Alice replied. He snatched the bacon strips off her plate.

Bella ate her hash browns. They were stone-cold and unappetizing but she knew she needed to eat or she'd be sick before lunchtime. She had to hold her fork clenched in her fist, which made eating very awkward. She saw Jenks look at her hand and then look away hastily.

She picked up a piece of her toast and stared at the pile of jelly heaped between the slices of bread. She glanced up to see Edward smiling at her. "I fixed your toast for you," he said. Beside his plate was a mound of empty jelly packets.

"Thanks," Bella replied. She put the top piece back down and lifted her jelly-toast sandwich.

"We were just talking about possible reconnaissance plans," Jenks said to Bella. "We were thinking that Edward - "

"Absolutely not," Bella interjected.

"But, Bella - "

"No," she said. "Where he goes, I go. I'm not risking him again."

"Bella ..." Edward spoke softly.

"_NO_!" Bella tossed down her jelly sandwich and it splattered over her plate. "I mean it. If Edward is going, I'm going, too."

"And trip another circuit-breaker in your brain?" Jenks queried. "Bella, look at you. You can't even hold a fork properly."

"I don't care! I -"

The restaurant's windows shattered. Someone screamed and some people rolled out of their chairs and ducked under the tables.

"Is someone shooting at us?"

"Get down! _Get down_!"

"Who's shooting? Someone's shooting?"

"Get away from the windows! Get back!"

Screams of panic. People jumped to their feet and rushed the doors, knocking over chairs and a table or two in their wake. The noise of the crashing tables and breaking plates only made the crowd more panicked and they became fear-blind, trampling, shoving, screaming, everyone trying to fit through the door at once though there was a huge floor-to-ceiling window opening only a couple of steps away. Jasper jumped up from his seat and grabbed Alice. He swung around and stood her on top of a chair, standing in front of her with his arms out to protect her from the crowd.

Collin picked up someone else's plate and munched on their bacon, watching the tumult like it was a good movie. Ben reached for a piece and Collin slapped his hand away, not taking his eyes from the crowd. A middle-aged woman tripped and sprawled on the carpet. She screamed as someone stepped on her hand.

Esme groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. She could feel the pain of the injured and she tried to rise to go help them but Phoenix grabbed her arms "Stay back!" he hissed. "They'll crush you, too."

"No, no, no," Bella whispered. "Oh my God." She turned anguished eyes to Edward and he pulled her into his arms. He wrapped his wings around her and she hid her face against his chest. The sounds were muffled but they were still terrible.

"You didn't mean to do it," Edward said. He laid his head on top of hers.

"All those people are being hurt because of me," she groaned.

"Shh," he whispered. There was nothing else he could say.

After a few moments, a stillness fell. The only sounds were the groans of the injured. She could hear sirens faintly.

"We ought to go," Jenks said.

"Let me finish this," Collin replied.

"Take it with you," Jenks told him.

Bella pulled away from Edward and left the soft, white embrace of his wings. The restaurant was a shambles. Alice, still atop her chair, looked around at the wreckage with a dazed expression. Jasper's eyes darted around searching for threats or dangers. Finding none, he lifted Alice down from the chair.

"Thank you," she said softly. She looked at her boyfriend, eating bacon nonchalantly, and then back at Jasper, whose face hid none of his emotions at the moment, naked and vulnerable. Bella heard Alice's breath leave her in a little huff. Surprise, maybe.

"Come on," Jenks urged them. They wound their way through the disaster, overturned tables, broken plates, smashed chairs (how had that happened?) and, as they got closer to the door, injured people. The woman with the smashed hand held it up and rocked, her face gray with pain. Esme reached for her, but Phoenix held her back. "Save your juice," he said. "We may need it later."

"But - " Esme protested.

"It's all my fault. My fault." Bella saw a girl, not much older than Jane, lying still on the floor, her face a bloody mess. Guilt hit her like a fist to the gut. "I'm so sorry."

"Remind me never to take Bella to the aquarium," Forks said.

"Shut the fuck up, moron," Phoenix snapped and smacked him on the back of the head.

Outside, the diners huddled in the parking lot, all of them staring back at the restaurant, waiting. They didn't seem to know exactly what they were waiting for ... perhaps to be told what to do or be given permission to leave by someone in authority. The sirens were louder now.

"This way," Forks said. They followed the sidewalk around to the back of the building. A few people detached themselves from the crowd and followed them, seeming not to care where they went as long as someone was leading. Forks unlocked the door of the largest RV Bella had ever seen. It looked like it was as long as a bus and was painted cream with dark brown stripes along the sides.

"_This_ is what you stole?" Bella asked.

"Yep!" Forks looked very proud of himself.

"You don't think we'll stand out in it?"

Forks shook his head. "Nah, there are a lot of RVs on the road. We'll be fine. Get in."

Inside, there was a multitude of comfortable chairs and a sofa, all pointed toward a flatscreen television mounted on the bulkhead wall behind the driver's seat. A small table divided the living area from the little kitchen, and beyond it was a bedroom and tiny bathroom. Bella wondered if Edward would even be able to fit inside it without bunching up his wings.

Forks inhaled deeply. "Don'tcha just love that new-car smell? We're going to travel in comfort this time."

"We can't leave yet," Jane said quickly. "Dave is still at the motel."

"Don't worry kid. We'll get him." Phoenix slid into the driver's seat and started the engine. He took the back way out of the lot because the front entrance was now clogged with police cars. An ambulance crept up to the doors of the restaurant. The crowd watched the RV exit with expressions of bewilderment and indignation. A few people saw that they were leaving and headed to their own cars. The police waved them back and tried to flag down the RV. Forks pretended not to see them. He drove across the street to the motel, also ignoring the traffic which had to slam on their brakes to avoid plowing into the RV's side.

"Hurry up and grab your shit," he said. "It won't be long until they send a cop over here to tell us to come back."

"You stay here," Edward said and gave Bella a kiss. Bella nodded. Tears oozed down her cheeks. How many people had been hurt today because of her? Was that girl, who had laid so still on the carpet, dead? Why was she losing control like this? Did it have to do with whatever was afflicting her hands? Bella laid her head on the top of the sofa and closed her eyes. _Bella Swan, menace to society_. Maybe that's why the Theta Project wanted to lock her up. They knew she'd lose control of it at some point.

"Don't beat yourself up about it," Jenks said. "It was an accident."

"People got hurt because of me."

"Everyone knows you didn't mean to do it."

Bella shook her head. "I can't go out in public like that any more, Jenks. I'm too dangerous right now. I don't know what's happening to me."

"I do," Jenks retorted. "You're fuckin' up your brain, that's what's happening. Listen, Bella, there's a reason why you hooked up with us. We're supposed to help you, right? You don't need to do it all yourself, especially since you're blowing fuckin' fuses every time you do. Let us handle some of this shit. We'll go check out Aro's place the old-fashioned way. If you don't want Edward to go, that's fine."

Bella heard shouting and turned her head. Alice and Collin were arguing in the parking lot. Alice had her arms crossed over her stomach and Collin was yelling something at her, chopping one hand down onto the other as he spoke. Alice shook her head and he threw up his hands. He marched to the RV and threw open the door. "Fuck you," he spat back at her. "I'm sick of your shit, anyway."

Alice had tears in her eyes but she kept her chin up. "I want to be with someone who respects me."

Collin rolled his eyes. "_What_ the fuck _ever_," he retorted.

Alice climbed the steps into the RV and sat down beside Bella. She was trembling, but she didn't waver. She stared straight ahead as if tears weren't dripping down her cheeks. Collin turned on the TV and glared at the screen. He flipped the channel once and then cursed. He threw the remote onto the sofa beside Bella, turned and pointed at Alice. "You and me, we're _done_."

She didn't respond. Didn't even look at him.

Bella looked over at Jasper and saw hope in his eyes.


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

..

"I really like him," Alice said shyly.

Jenks's latent sexism had flared up again and all of the girls were left behind in the RV while the men went scouting out Aro's house. Bella had thrown what could most charitably be called "a fit" when Edward insisted on going along, but implored Bella to remain with the other women. He would only do fly-overs, he promised. He would be perfectly safe in the air. She thought of a hundred ways he could be hurt before he even left the RV, but when all was said and done, she didn't feel fair keeping him here.

"You know what Jasper said to me?" Alice continued. "He said that he wants to be my _friend_. Can you believe it?"

Bella was sitting with her on the sofa, with Dave curled up, sound asleep, in her lap. Jane had rolled his ball for him down the whole length of the RV over and over today and he was happily exhausted. Now Jane was watching _Jersey Shore_ and Bella felt like doing the 'mom thing' and hollering for her to change the channel because that show would rot her brain.

Lauren was cooking, though how she had managed to make a meal out of what Edward had brought back from the grocery store, Bella did not know. She tried to warn Lauren before she sent him, though she had to admit, it had been kind of funny watching Lauren pull bag after bag of candy out of the grocery sacks.

Esme was in the bedroom area, sleeping. All day long, she had felt ill from the residual effects of feeling the pain of those in the restaurant and being unable to do anything about it. Bella felt awful about it, but Esme had insisted that she wasn't upset at Bella for causing it with that accidental burst of power. She said she'd feel better in the morning and Bella sincerely hoped so.

Kebi was at the table, a manicure kit spread out in front of her, silver tools with mother-of-pearl handles. Amun had given it to her earlier in the day and she seemed to take the gift as an imperative to groom her nails. Amun was clearly smitten with her, though Bella didn't know how deep his interest actually went. She still wasn't sure he was_ capable_ of love. He and Kebi had spent a good portion of the day in quiet conversation, the melodious sound of Arabic serving as background music for the rest of them. But whenever he wasn't engaged with her, Kebi fell into that waiting silence, her head down and her hands folded in her lap as if she were in standby mode until a command would bring her back to life. Now, he had given her a task, and she was intently focused on doing it properly, but Bella had no doubt that when she was finished, she would fall back into stillness.

"Our parents taught us that friendship is the most important thing in a relationship," Bella told Alice. "You know, a lot of people fall in love but they don't actually _like_ the person, and when the infatuation wears off, they find that they don't have anything in common and they don't really enjoy spending time with each other. My dad always told us, _'Don't ever get married unless the person you're with is your very best friend.'_ Jasper took that to heart."

Alice looked out the window into the dark woods around them. "That sums up my problem with Collin in a nutshell. I had a crush on him, but when I tried to have a relationship with him, I realized I didn't really like who he was most of the time. And I'm not willing to sit around and wait for that once-in-a-while side of him that I _did _like to come back."

"I knew that Collin would have to make a lot of changes before he was ready to have a relationship," Bella said. "I just hoped he'd be willing to do it for you."

"How did you know?" Alice wrinkled her brow.

Bella tried to keep a straight face. "Dave told us."

Alice's lips twitched. "A three month old puppy analyzed my relationship prospects with Collin?"

"And the damndest thing about it was that he was right."

"He should have his own relationship column in _Cosmo,_" Alice snickered.

Bella laughed. "I can see it now: '_Your boyfriend needs his belly rubbed more often.'"  
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Maybe it was the accumulated stress of the last week that created tension that had to be released in some way, but Alice and Bella laughed until tears gleamed in their eyes. It woke Dave and he huffed in indignation. He gave a little grunt and squirmed around to a more comfortable spot before he drifted back to sleep.

"Do you think I'm rushing into things with Jasper?" Alice asked.

"Rushing into what? Being friends?"

"Good point, but let's be realistic, he _does_ want more than that."

"He loves you, Alice," Bella said. "And if a friend is all you want, that's what he'll be. Jasper has always put other people first, even when it was to his own detriment. He's going to be what you need."

"Like our angels," Alice sighed. "I need to talk to Edward about that. I'm not sure I can hear Emmett. Maybe he can teach me how to listen better or something."

They fell silent for a moment. Bella surveyed her friend and noted, "You seem to be taking your split with Collin pretty well." Better than Collin was, actually. All day long, he'd stared out the window and spoken in monosyllables. Bella would have expected a display of temper, or for Collin to attempt some kind of petty revenge by grabbing the first available girl and rubbing it in Alice's face. What she hadn't expected was his sadness. Even Phoenix, usually about as sensitive as a bulldozer, noticed his quiet anguish and didn't tease him about it. Dave had brought Collin his rope toy at one point, dropping it beside him on the sofa as a gift. Collin had given him a faint smile and a rub behind the ears before resuming his silent stare outside.

Alice twisted the ring she wore on her thumb. "You remember yesterday when you told me you were glad that Edward was your first? Well, when you said that, I realized that I wasn't glad that Collin was _mine_. That's when I knew that I'd made a terrible mistake. It hurts to admit I was such a dumbass, but I'm not devastated to have lost him. No gallons of ice cream or crying fests. And if that isn't a sobering indictment of our relationship, I don't know what is."

There was a thump on the roof. "That'll be Edward," Bella said. She set Dave aside on the seat and got up to unlock the RV's door. Edward swung down from the roof into the vehicle. Water droplets sparkled in his rusty-brown hair.

"How'd you get wet? It's not raining."

"Condensation," he said. "Going through the clouds." He shook his head and water spattered on Bella. She squealed and he grinned. His eyes sparkled with exhilaration. He didn't get to fly as often as he'd like but when he did, he took full advantage of it soaring in wild dives and swoops that made Bella's stomach clench with anxiety to see it. She knew he wouldn't fall, but still ...

He took off his sword and slid it beneath the sofa. Amun had bought it for him this afternoon, a Japanese officer's sword from the WWII era, the best the small town they were near could provide. Edward loved it and Bella agreed: it looked wicked-cool with flames dancing along the blade.

Dave danced around his ankles impatiently, eager to be acknowledged. Edward picked him up and Dave enthusiastically licked every bit of skin he could reach. "Hey little guy. Did you protect the females?" He tilted his head and listened to Dave's report.

"Where are the others?" Alice asked, after Edward nodded solemnly and told the puppy (who had spent the entire time napping) that he was a goodboy for guarding them. His duty discharged, Dave trotted back to jump up on the bed beside Esme, where it was quieter.

"On their way back," Edward replied. Forks had stolen another car today, and after they had parked the RV in a campground they felt was sufficiently far enough away from Aro's compound, they had all squeezed inside and driven it to Aro's house. They'd seemed excited and Bella wanted to smack each of them upside the head. Didn't they realize how dangerous this was? That at any time, they could be taken like Edward was? Or killed? Losing any of them, even Collin or Amun, would be crushing. But the guys seemed to think they were immortal, like Edward, perhaps preternaturally protected by God. She supposed everyone felt they were the star of their own personal movie, and while other characters might fall (usually incidental supporting characters) they, themselves would still be standing as the credits rolled.

"Did you find out anything?" Alice asked.

"Yeah, it's the strangest thing." Edward scratched his head. "Kebi was right; there's no one there except for Aro and a couple of guards. The place is deserted at night."

A flash of light caught Bella's eye and she saw the headlights of their stolen car bouncing down the campground road toward them. Within a minute or so, she heard voices and the RV door opened. The men climbed inside, discussing the virtues of various entry points.

"Mmm, something smells good," Jenks said. He stepped behind Lauren, who was stirring a pot on the stove, and said: "Found it!" as he lowered his face to nibble on her neck. She giggled.

You could have heard an eyelash drop. Forks and Phoenix gaped. Ben, who was talking about methods to defeat alarm system contacts, turned around to see what they were staring at and his voice died away in mid-word. Collin's mouth hung open in a comical expression of shock.

"What?" Jenks demanded.

"You and Laurie?" Phoenix blurted.

"Yeah," Jenks said with a shrug. "What about it?"

"Fuck, Laurie, I thought you had better taste than that," Phoenix said in tones of awe.

"She's just using me for my body," Jenks announced, and gave her a huge, smacking kiss on the cheek. Lauren giggled again and gave him a playful swat on the backside as he passed.

Amun took Kebi's hand and pulled her to her feet. "We are going out to dinner," he announced.

"Oh," Lauren said, glancing at the stove. "Did I make something you don't like?"

"No," Amun said. "We just wished for some privacy." Kebi kept her eyes on the floor, but a hint of a blush spread along her cheekbones.

"Oh!" Lauren smiled warmly at them. "Go on then. Have a good time."

"Come along, Kebi." He plucked the car keys from Phoenix's hand, who seemed to be still poleaxed by the revelation that Jenks and Lauren were together. Amun took Kebi's elbow and guided her out the door.

Bell glanced over at Alice as she watched the two of them walk to the car. Amun opened Kebi's door for her and then, to Bella's surprise, fastened her seat belt for her. "Is this what you saw when you touched Kebi's hand?"

"I saw him give her a strand of pearls," Alice responded. They both watched the red glow of the car's tail lights disappear. "I knew then that they were going to be together. She's _perfect_ for him."

"Because she's a submissive?" Phoenix asked.

All heads swiveled to stare at him.

"What? _Submissive_? As in that whips-and-chains shit?" Jenks asked.

Phoenix snorted. "It's not all about pain and leather. It's about what a person needs in order to feel safe and fulfilled. Sometimes, people feel more comfortable expressing their sexuality if the other partner is in charge. And Kebi is pretty much the most submissive person I have ever seen."

"I thought she acted that way because she was abused," Bella said.

"Nah. It's her personality. She may have taken refuge in it as a way to protect herself, but she really is a natural."

"So does that mean that Amun is a ...whatcher-call-it ... dominant?" Jenks asked him.

"You couldn't tell?" Phoenix replied. He tilted his head and looked at them as if they'd all just confessed to being blind and deaf. "I doubt if he's into the scene, but he's like Kebi. A natural."

"I don't like how he bosses her around," Alice said.

Phoenix rubbed his forehead. "It's really not like that. It's hard to explain, but it's his way of taking care of her. If she didn't want to do something, he wouldn't tell her to do it. That's part of the trust between partners. In their case, it seems like an unspoken dynamic, but other people decide limits and rules ahead of time."

"How come you know all this shit?" Forks asked.

"Read it in a _Reader's Digest_ column," Phoenix drawled. "Dinner ready, Laurie? I'm starving."

Lauren had forgotten the food on the stove, so engrossed was she in what Phoenix was saying. "Oh!" she grabbed the pot off the stove and gave a sigh of relief when she was nothing had scorched. she began to ladle out portions onto the plates. "You guys are gonna have to share," she warned. "There aren't enough plates for everyone."

It appeared that Edward had bought the ingredients for spaghetti, one of his favorites, but unlike Bella's version, it wasn't just boiled noodles and sauce from a jar. Lauren had added spices from the small spice rack above the stove, and she had even whipped up some garlic bread by using parmesan cheese, butter and garlic powder on toasted bread slices.

_Spaghetti_. Fuck. She was going to have a hell of a time trying to eat that. She couldn't hold a fork normally for food that stayed put, let alone something she'd have to twirl around the tines. Maybe she could cut it up, she thought, and scoop it up with a spoon.

"I made you something," Edward told her. He opened the drawer and brought out a strange object_._ Bella had seen him working on it earlier in the day but had thought he was just playing around with a roll of duct tape they had found in the trunk of the stolen car. Now she saw that he had taken a handful of pencils and taped them securely around the handle of the fork, and had created a loop on the end by sticking the tape to itself. He slipped the loop over her wrist and she palmed the fat handle. She poked experimentally at the food and discovered that his invention worked perfectly. _This_ she could hold onto and even if her clumsy fingers dropped it, the loop would keep it from falling.

"Does it work?" Edward asked her. "Can you grip it?"

She looked up at Edward with love shining in her eyes.

"You're a fuckin' genius, man," Jenks said, and clapped a hand on Edward's shoulder.

_Don't cry. Don't cry_. "Thank you," she managed. "Thank you so much."

Edward smiled sweetly and gave her a peck on the lips. "You're welcome, my love. Now, let's eat!"

While they ate Jenks discussed "the Aro situation" as he called it. "Kebi was right. The place is practically deserted after dark. He had only two guards, that we saw."

"Not all of the building is alarmed, either," Phoenix noted. "There weren't any contacts on the window in the newly constructed room at the back." He pulled out one of the aerial shots from his pocket at pointed to a small addition at the top of the image. "We could get inside that way."

"Did you find the box?" Jenks asked Ben. Amun had described to him a box that would be on the exterior of the house somewhere, a box that held the alarm's circuit boards, and it had been Ben's mission to locate it. "Big fuckin' design flaw, if you ask me. It's here." Ben pointed to another spot on the image and Jenks circled it with his pen.

"It's not a flaw, really," Phoenix said. "It's designed to trigger the alarm if anyone fucks with it, but Amun knows how to shut it down from that point, which isn't exactly common knowledge. Your average burglar wouldn't know how to do it."

"It's too easy," Bella said. "It makes no sense. He's head of the Theta Project and he knows we're gunning for him. He should have better security than this."

"Maybe Kebi's right that he fears assassination from one of the guards," Forks suggested. "Kebi said that she overheard Aro say that to Sam one evening. He only has a couple of people he trusts. And maybe he's more confident in the TanseraNet system than he should be."

"Is Amun confident he can defeat it?"

"He should be. He owns the company that makes it."

Bella shook her head. "I don't like it. Something doesn't feel right, here. Alice, can you see anything? Anything at all?"

"No," Alice admitted. "I'm blocked, Bella. I only get bits and pieces any more, like seeing Amun give Kebi that necklace. I hate being blind like this."

"Amun says he's not blocking you on purpose," Edward offered.

"Why aren't _my_ powers blocked?" Bella demanded. "Nothing about this makes sense, Edward." She rose and took their plate to the sink.

"I think in your case it's because you're stronger than he is," Jenks said.

Bella squirted some soap into the sink and began to run water for the dishes. She collected plates from those who were finished, cupping her hands beneath their edges so that she wouldn't drop them. Edward checked the sink for anything sharp. They worked in tandem: He held the plates for her while she scrubbed and rinsed them, and then he dried them and put them away. It was a tight fit in the tiny kitchen and his wings were always bumping into the cabinets, but there was the fun of brushing up against one another. He stood behind her to put a glass in the cabinet above her head and she couldn't resist teasing him a little by rubbing her backside against his pelvis. He groaned softly into her hair and she shivered from the sensation of his hot breath near her ear.

He turned and clapped his hands loudly. Esme, who'd slept through dinner, awoke with a start. She blinked and looked around in confusion.

"Oh, good, you're awake," Edward said. "Bella and I need to use the bedroom." He pulled Bella by the arm through the narrow hallway. He stood at the door, looking expectantly at Esme, who stood and shuffled past them, still half-asleep. Dave followed her, shooting Edward an indignant look which Edward ignored. He pushed Bella into the vacated room and shut the door behind them.

"I want to try something," Bella said.

His grin was huge and eager. "Sure!"

"Take off your shirt," she instructed. He did, working it over his wings and tossing it to the floor. "Turn around," she said. He did, confused but willing. She lifted her hands to the small feathers at the base of his wing and concentrated.

At dinner, she had remembered how she helped Emmett to touch Alice, coating his ephemeral hands with her power. She concentrated on her own hands now, in the same manner. She watched as her fingers took the feather at its base and gently stroked upward and out over the vane, smoothing it as she went. She let out a little gasp that sounded like a sob.

"I can do it!" she whispered. "I can help you preen your wings!"

Twin tears of happiness slid down her cheeks and he turned to wipe them away with his thumbs. His beautiful eyes were luminous. "It wouldn't have mattered if you couldn't," he told her.

"It mattered to me," she said. "I like taking care of you, too."

The small feathers at the base of his wings were bedraggled and she knew that it had to be driving him nuts. She started at the bottom and worked her way up, straightening them as she went, smoothing split vanes and laying each one in its proper place. "All done," she said.

Wordlessly, he lifted her onto his lap and wrapped his wings around her. Bella's heart felt so full and light that she couldn't express her feelings in words, but she didn't have to, did she?

She lifted her head from his shoulder and smiled at him. He tucked her hair back behind her ears and leaned in for a kiss that said everything.

* * *

><p>"Where are we going, again?" Jane asked.<p>

"To see a family friend," Bella said. This was the first time she'd driven a car in ages, and it felt strange. Lauren and Jane were in the backseat and both of them were getting antsy. They'd left very early this morning and it was now almost dark. She glanced over at Edward, who was in the passenger seat. He'd begged her to let him try driving but she'd told him he'd have to wait until after Jane and Lauren were out of the car.

"Are we almost there?" Jane asked. "I'm_ starving_."

"Almost," Bella said, checking the odometer. "About ten more minutes, I think."

It had been a majority decision, and the two people in the back seat had not been consulted as to their opinions. The puppy was the only occupant who had been let in on the purpose of this trip. Edward had charged him with taking care of the females until they returned.

Bella knew that Jane was going to be furious, but she'd rather have Jane alive and angry than Jane possibly hurt or killed. She was very nervous about the planned attack tomorrow night. Something was wrong. It was too easy. She was petty sure they were walking into some kind of a trap, and all she could hope for was that it was one they could defeat with their combined talents.

She turned into the long driveway and pulled up to the house just as the sun set. A familiar figure came out onto the porch. Bella hadn't seen her in over a decade, but she looked the same, a short, round figure with steel-gray hair and large glasses perched on her small face.

Bella got out of the car and ran up to the porch. "Aunt Esme!" she said. They hugged tightly.

"Oh, Bella, sweetie, you're _beautiful_," Aunt Esme said. "You look so much like your mother, though you have your father's eyes."

Jane and Lauren emerged from the car and followed Edward up the walk.

"Is this your man?" Aunt Esme asked. "My goodness, Bella, he's gorgeous!"

Bella hid a smile. She wondered what Edward looked like to her. "This is Edward, Aunt Esme. He's my everything."

"And who is this?" Aunt Esme smiled warmly at Jane and Jane responded with a timorous smile of her own.

"This is my daughter, Jane," Bella said.

"Daughter! I didn't know you had a child!" Esme surveyed Jane as if searching for a resemblance to Bella.

"I'm adopted," Jane told her. "But Bella is my mom in every way that counts."

Aunt Esme hugged Jane. Jane's eyes widened and she slowly raised her arms to hug her back. "She adopted me, too," Aunt Esme said. "I've been her 'aunt' since she was little. Come on inside, everyone. Let's have dinner."

Jane shook her head as they walked inside. "I'd never even _heard_ the name 'Esme' before I met _our_ Esme, and now I know two of them. Weird."

"Aunt Esme's full name is 'Esmerelda', but she hates it," Bella whispered.

They sat down around the table while Aunt Esme bustled back and forth, bringing bowls and platters to the table. She refused any help. Apparently, Aunt Esme thought it was Thanksgiving, because she had prepared a turkey with all the trimmings. They all waited until she had finished before ladling out portions onto their plate. Bella was afraid of dropping the serving spoons, so she handed her plate to Edward and he filled it up for her. Bella noticed Aunt Esme beaming at him with approval.

"I've seen this on TV!" Edward announced, looking around at the golden-brown bird spilling stuffing from its cavity, the cranberry sauce (which he poked and prodded around on his plate, enjoying the consistency more than the taste) and the steaming bowl of mashed potatoes.

"Haven' t you ever had a Thanksgiving dinner?" Aunt Esme queried.

"No, he's ... uh ... Canadian," Bella said. She had a vague recollection that they either didn't have the holiday or didn't celebrate it the same way. She hoped Aunt Esme wasn't better informed on the subject of Canadian holidays.

"Ah," Aunt Esme replied.

Bella took the fork Edward had made for her out of her purse and Aunt Esme eyed it as she sipped her wine. She was too polite to ask, especially when she saw how Bella had to use two hands and cup her wine glass in her palms to drink.

"So, my dear, I hear you're a terrorist. How's that going for you?"

Bella sighed. Between bites, she told Aunt Esme a somewhat edited version of her story, the facility and the Theta Project. She made it sound as though she just destroyed the buildings, but Aunt Esme was no dummy. She knew what Bella didn't want to say. Her eyes softened with compassion.

After dinner, Bella took Lauren and Jane out onto the porch and they all sat in the swing, watching the fireflies twinkle in Aunt Esme's yard. Dave bounded around, trying to catch them.

"I want the two of you to stay here until it's over."

Lauren said nothing but Jane hotly protested, as Bella had expected.

"We need someone with a Gift to stay with Lauren and Dave," Bella said.

"Oh, bullshit!" Jane spat. "You want me to stay here because you want me to be _safe_."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"I can take care of myself!" Jane shouted. "We've been through this before, Mom. You let me come with you when you went to rescue Edward."

"I was wrong," Bella said simply. "I gave into you because I didn't want to tell you 'no'. Well, now I am. I don't want you to see that, Jane. I'm scared you'll get hurt, or, God forbid, captured. I need to know you're safe so I can concentrate on what needs to be done. Please, Jane._ Please._ I'm asking you to do this for me."

Jane's eyes filled with tears. "I'm scared, too. I'm afraid I'm gonna lose you just like I've lost everyone else I ever cared about. I don't want to let you or Edward out of my sight. And if ... if the end has to come, I want to be with you. 'Cause I know Edward will take me with you."

"I don't want that for you, Jane," Bella said, and she understood why her life here on earth was so important to Edward. "I want you to grow up and go to college, and get married, and have a career where people appreciate that brain of yours. I want you to go out dancing, and skinny dip in ponds, and make mistakes and learn lessons from them. Jane, I want you to have a _life_. I love you, Jane. And we all want to protect the people we love. Please, Jane. I'm begging you. Let me do this for you. Soon, you'll be grown up and I won't be able to protect you the way I'll want to, but right now ..." She sighed. "Right now, let me be your mom."

Jane sobbed and laid her head on Bella's shoulder. Bella put her arms around the girl and let her cry.

"You'd better come back," Jane said.

Bella couldn't promise her and Jane knew that. She kissed the top of Jane's head and said nothing. She met Lauren's eyes over the top of Jane's head. _Take care of her, please_, Bella mouthed. Lauren nodded. She gave Jane's back a soft pat.

In the yard, Dave let out a coughing gag. He'd caught one of the fireflies and it tasted _terrible._ Bella called to him and they went back inside Esme's house. They found Edward and Esme seated in the living room. On the coffee table was a box of Godiva chocolates. Edward smiled at Bella and said, "You were right. These are yucky."


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four

..

"I'm sorry," Edward said for the tenth time. "I'm really sorry."

"It's okay, Edward," Bella assured him. "You didn't mean to do it." She rubbed her shoulder where the seat belt had left a bruise and looked around. Nothing but flat, straight road for miles. What in the world had happened? Their car lay upside down in the ditch, the back wheels still spinning. She shouldn't have let Edward drive unsupervised, but he'd been doing so well and she'd been so sleepy. She'd thought she'd doze off for just a few minutes and woke to the sound of squalling tires and the world turning upside down.

"There was a woolly worm in the road," Edward explained.

Maybe she had cracked her head in the wreck because that made no goddam sense. "The woolly worm flipped our car?"

"No, I flipped the car when I swerved to avoid hitting the woolly worm." He surveyed the road. "Ah! There he is." He went over to a spot near the center line, beside the curving black lines their tires had left, and picked up the fuzzy brown and black worm. "Poor little fellow! I probably scared him half to death." He carried the worm to the side of the road and deposited him on top of a scraggly bush. "There you go, little guy."

He turned to face Bella and tilted his head. "I can't hear your mind right now."

That was because she was blocking him as hard as she could. She went to the driver's side of the car and crawled inside through the open window. She pulled the keys out of the ignition and backed out, nearly knocking over Edward, who had crouched down behind her to see what she was doing.

"I can flip the car back over, if you'd like," he offered.

"Don't bother. It's fucked." Bella inserted the key into the trunk's keyhole and the lid popped open, spilling their bags onto the ground. Bella picked up hers, a small black backpack, and slung it over her shoulder. She started down the road, in the direction they'd been driving.

"We don't need to walk," he said, trotting to catch up to her. "I'll fly."

She took a deep breath. "I'd just like to walk for a little while, okay, Edward?"

"All right." He eyed her quizzically. "Are you mad at me?"

"No, I'm not mad at you," she said. She couldn't be mad at Edward for being Edward. "I'm just sort of mad at the situation." But that was pointless, too. Even if she'd been awake, she probably wouldn't have been able to stop him from swerving to avoid squashing the worm.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called Jenks.

"Hey, Bella," he said. "We were just talking about you."

"Really?"

"No, not really, but I thought it might make you feel good if you thought we all were collectively mourning your absence. What's up?"

"Cancel the action for tonight. Edward and I aren't going to make it back in time."

"Oh? What's the problem?"

"I let Edward drive," Bella said darkly.

"Oh shit," Jenks laughed. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine, but the car is a lost cause."

"Steal another one, why don't you?"

Bella sighed. "I've never so much as shoplifted a pack of gum and you want me to attempt grand theft auto?"

Jenks snickered. "I stole my first car when I was seven."

"You're kidding."

"No, really, I'm not. Right outta the fuckin' church parking lot. Some buddies and I cut Sunday School class. We planned to go to the carnival, gorge ourselves on cotton candy and elephant ears, ride some fuckin' rides, and be back before anyone was the wiser. The massive flaw in our perfect fuckin' plan was that _I didn't know how to drive._ Got about half a mile before I crashed the fucker right into a tree."

"Were you hurt?"

"I was only going about five miles an hour, so no, we weren't hurt. Scared shitless, but unhurt. My dad was friends with the sheriff. He had him arrest us, cuffs and all, and lock us in a cell down at the fuckin' station until we were all crying for our moms. You know, the bastard really had a sense of humor about it. He gave us each a tin plate with a slice of bread on it and a glass of water for dinner. My dad kept my mug shot on his desk."

Bella laughed.

"He died the next year, my dad," Jenks said, and his voice had a wistful tone. "Always wondered how I woulda fuckin' turned out if he'd stuck around. Probably be a goddam accountant or something." As if he realized he was drifting into an uncomfortably sentimental territory, his voice became brisk. "Anyway, Bella, we really need to teach you hot to hotwire a car. It's, like, one of those essential life skills, like how to change a fuckin' tire or perform CPR."

"Well, the list of shit I need to learn keeps getting longer because I don't know how to do either of those things."

"All right, Bella, here's what you do: tie up your shirt so it shows off your tits and hitchhike. Someone pulls over, you yank 'em out of the fuckin' car and drive. First gas station or McDonalds you come to, you steal a new pair of license plates."

"No, I think I'll just take the Angel Express, but thanks for the lesson."

"All right. Probably better we ain't doin' this shit tonight, anyway. I'm worried about your brain, girlie. You knocked somethin' loose in there last time you went all Super Bella."

"Yeah," Bella kicked at a patch of gravel. "But what choice do I have?"

"Well, try to rest up tonight, okay? Take a warm bubble bath, get some sleep, have some wild-and-possibly-illegal kinky angel sex ... You know: relaxing shit."

Sounds great," Bella laughed.

"Lemme talk to Edward before you hang up."

Bella handed the phone to Edward and strolled onward, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her jeans. It was a lovely day and the birds sang sweetly from the trees. Insects buzzed in the tall grasses beside the road and the sky was so brightly blue it almost hurt her eyes to look at it.

She could hear Edward murmuring into the phone a few paces behind her, but other than that, it was just the songs of the birds and the wind through the trees. Bella inhaled deeply. She could smell grass and warm earth and wet stone from the brook that ran along the other side of the road. There was so much beauty in the world, but she sometimes forgot to look.

Edward caught up to her and handed her the phone, which she slipped back into her pocket. She took his hand in her own and he smiled at her. The wind ruffled his hair and a few blinding-white feathers on the edge of his wing and it was one of those moments where Bella when Bella wished she was an artist and could capture his amazing beauty.

"I'm sorry I crashed the car," he told her. "Jenks said I should have squashed the worm."

"I'm glad that you didn't," she said.

* * *

><p>Dave woke with a start. There was noise and it seemed to be coming from the place where the humans kept their peoplefood. The Ancient (as Dave thought of all females too old to have puppies) had made him a soft bed in the place with the bright-box, beside the long-soft where the humans sat to stare at it. Dave liked the bright-box. He had chosen his name-word from listening to it vocalize and sometimes he watched the bright flashes of light and moving patterns, though it made little sense to him.<p>

He stood and shook out his fur before trotting to the opening to the peoplefood area. He froze as he heard the noise again and crouched. _There_! A human opened the den covering and came inside. He motioned to another one who followed.

_Baddogs!_ They just couldn't keep them from trying to steal their territory and females! Their females must be very high alphas to be this attractive to the baddogs.

It made him angry. Dave felt a growl bubble up in his throat, but the winged-man had insisted his first duty in a situation like this was to get the puppy and the other females to safety, but once he had, he was going to come back here and bite the baddogs, bite them until they ran away yelping and didn't come back.

Dave crept backwards and headed for the stairs. Lots of jumps. His legs were tired by the time he got to the top. He sniffed and identified all the scents of the puppy, the female and the Ancient. He momentarily lost track of what he was doing, exploring all of the new smells of this floor, but he heard a creak and it reminded him of what his mission. He followed the puppy's scent into a smaller den. He heard footsteps behind him and froze. The baddogs had reached the top of the stairs and turned into the den where the Ancient's scent led. One of them had a thin, shiny thing in his hand. Dave crept up behind them and crouched at the opening to watch. The baddog poked the shiny thing into the Ancient and she woke with a soft cry, but then went limp. Dave was indignant. This was no time for sleeping.

He turned and hurried back to the puppy's den. He jumped up on her bed and bumped her chin with his nose. She made a soft vocalization and turned away. Dave bumped her again and her eyes opened. Quickly, he put a paw on her mouth so that she wouldn't start vocalizing. He thanked the BigDog that the puppy was smart enough understand. She heard the noise now, too. She slid off the bed and rolled beneath it.

* * *

><p>Jane crawled back under the bed as far as she could go, trying to quiet the loud rasps of her breath. She heard heavy footsteps, too heavy to be Lauren's or Aunt Esme's. Her heart thumped so hard she was afraid she might be sick.<p>

"Where's the girl?" a man's voice asked.

"Hiding, it looks like. The bed is still warm so she couldn't have gone far."

A man crouched down and looked under the bed. He smiled at Jane. "Hi there!"

She hit him with her power and he fell back groaning. She scrambled out from under the bed and the second one grabbed her. She tried to hit him to, but she felt her power deflected like he was brushing away a fly. She saw a hypodermic in his hand and screamed with terror, fighting him with every ounce of strength she had. The struggle moved them out of the bedroom onto the landing. His arm was across her chest and as she writhed, she pushed it up to face level. She bit down, hard and the man shouted in pain. He hit her on the side of the head so hard that Jane saw black spots, but she didn't let go. She could hear Dave snarling too, and the man yelped as Dave sank his needle-sharp baby teeth into the man's calf.

Jane felt his grip weakening and she threw her body forward and broke his hold. He let out a snarl and leapt at her. Jane dodged and he plunged over the stair railing. He landed with a shattering crash on the bannister below, which he might have survived, but it broke and the jagged end of one of the rails stabbed up through his chest. He gave a little cough, and spit specks of blood up onto his cheeks.

The man in the bedroom was still moaning, laid out on the floor, his palms clutched to his head like he was afraid his skull might come apart. Jane felt bitter fury rise up and nearly overwhelm her. It was a ugly, familiar emotion. She'd stewed in it while she lived at the facility and thought that she'd finally poured out its dregs after Bella rescued her, rescued her both from the facility and from the hateful anger that threatened to drown her.

She hit him with her power again and again, until he screamed, and again and again until he fell silent, his eyes as wide and blank as the man impaled on Aunt Esme's stairs spindles. She had never killed anyone before, certainly not with her power. She'd never known she _could_ kill someone with her power. The realization was both terrifying and - just a little - exhilarating.

Aunt Esme and Lauren must be dead, she thought, else they would have come running by now. Jane was afraid of what she'd find in their rooms, but she had to check them. Maybe they could still be helped. Dave trotted along beside her. He looked like he felt very proud of himself. She hadn't thanked him yet for waking her. She bent and picked him up. She buried her face in his fur and shivered. "You're a good boy," she said. "A very good boy."

Having him in her arms was comforting. She felt for the light switch inside Aunt Esme's room and brushed it with her finger tips. She took a deep breath before she turned on the light.

Aunt Esme lay on her back wearing a long, white cotton nightgown with tatted lace at the neck and cuffs. Jane stepped slowly up to the side of the bed. Dave whimpered and she realized she was squeezing him too hard. Her whole body was shaking with delayed fear and adrenaline. She looked down at Esme and nearly collapsed in relief when she saw the soft rise and fall of her chest.

There was a small bright spot of blood on her sleeve and Jane remembered seeing the hypodermic. Esme must be drugged. She quickly went into Lauren's room and found her in the same condition. Jane bit her lip, a mannerism she had picked up from Bella. They had to get out of here as soon as possible. But how?

Jane went down the stairs, skirting the body as best she could. She shut the kitchen door and locked it, though she was pretty sure these people knew how to defeat locks. She jammed a chair under the knob. Maybe that would slow them down. Did Esme have a gun? She'd have to check her nightstand and under the bed; that's where adults usually hid them.

She opened the door that ed to the garage and saw Aunt Esme's car, a shiny black Cadillac. She peered in the window and looked at the pedals. An automatic. She could do this.

She went back to the stairs and steeled herself for what she must do. She grabbed the man's shoulders and lifted his body off the jagged wood spikes, grimacing at the sound it made. She shoved it off the stairs and he landed with a thud. Quickly, she went into Esme's room and searched in her nightstand, pushing aside notebooks and crossword puzzle books and then she saw the revolver below. A small box of shells were tucked in the corner. Jane examined it closely and found a button on the side with a red dot. She pushed it in and the red dot disappeared. The safety. She found another button, this one a sliding button with a hatch-grooved top. When she pushed it, the revolver opened, revealing the back of the cylinder where the bullets went. Jane tucked one into every hole and snapped it shut. She wasn't sure if she had to pull the hammer to fire. She hoped she wouldn't have to find out.

Her pajama top was designed like a hoodie with pockets beside the zipper. Jane slipped the gun into one of them and took a pillow from Aunt Esme's bed. She used the belt from her robe to tie the pillow snugly to her legs. Grunting and straining, she pulled Aunt Esme out of the bed, onto the floor. She dragged the woman to the stairs and started walking backwards down the stairs. Aunt Esme's feet bumped on every tread, but Jane thought the pillow worked nicely as padding.

Getting her in the car was awful. Jane panted and heaved, pushed and pulled and at one point stopped to wipe away tears of frustration, but she couldn't give up. She didn't have _time_ to give up. Once Aunt Esme was safely in the car, she went back upstairs for Lauren, who was mercifully lighter and easier to drag and to stuff in the vehicle. She was even able to bring their duffel bag full of money at the same time.

The keys to Aunt Esme's car hung on a hook by the door. "Come on, Dave," Jane said. She opened the passenger door for him and he hopped up on the seat. She settled on the driver's side and searched for the controls to move her seat up. She had to put it up all the way and it still wasn't close enough. The toes of her shoes barely brushed the pedals. Cadillacs are not built with tiny thirteen year old girls in mind. She looked up through the windshield as if to say, _"Now what, God?"_ and that's when she spotted them: a pair of ice skates, the kind that clip on over regular shoes. She jumped out of the car and strapped them to her feet and squealed with glee when she found that she could reach the pedals now.

She hit the button on the garage door opener and started the engine. She took a deep breath. It couldn't be that hard, right? Put the gearshift up to "D" (it took her a few tries to realize she was supposed to push the brake at the same time) and then hit the skinny pedal on the right to go. The car shot forward so fast the tires squealed. Jane hit the brake and the everything in the car slid forward. Dave discovered that a leather seat provides little traction for a scrambling puppy and Lauren slid off the seat onto Aunt Esme, who was curled up in the floor well. Jane wondered if she should stop and move them to a more comfortable position and that's when she saw headlights.

"_Punch it, Chewey_!" she cried and floored the gas pedal. The car roared forward and poor Dave slid into the back of the seat.

Jane had once read a novel set in the 1950s in which teenagers played "Chicken", driving at one another to see who would lose courage and steer out of the way first. The driver of car coming down the driveway toward her apparently had a lot more courage than Jane did because he or she did not waver. Jane jerked the wheel to the side and the car bounced off the driveway, lunging over Aunt Esme's flowerbeds.

"Sorry!" she called to the sleeping woman in the backseat. "I'll help you re-plant them if we live."

She was glad she had put on her seat belt because Jane was tossed like a pea in a bucket as the car bounced over the rough terrain. The seat belt bit into her hip bones and Jane knew she'd have bruises. She steered back toward the driveway and over-shot it. There was a horrible crunch and a big bump as the car slammed through a ditch. She whipped the wheel to the side and screamed as the car shot through what looked like a wall, but turned out to be tall green bushes. Pieces of the shredded topiary clung to the windshield wipers. With a thump, they were on the road. She gasped in loud breaths and looked over at poor Dave, who was now down in the floor well, his paws splayed and braced for balance on the floor mat. "We made it!" she announced, and punched the ice skate down on the gas pedal.

Jane had played driving video games, so she understood the basic principles of piloting an automobile. The most difficult part was learning the allowances involved in the steering wheel and the pedals. She knew she was probably about an inch away from getting them killed as she roared down the country roads, turning whenever she saw another road, trying to lose anyone who might be following. She had no idea where she was going, she was just trying to get them _away_. As far away as possible.

She ended up on the outskirts of a town, where she saw a crummy-looking little motel that had a VACANCY sign illuminated. She pulled over to the side of the road and dragged Lauren around to the front passenger seat. From the duffel bag, she pulled out two one hundred dollar bills and stuffed them in her pocket. Slowly, she pulled up in front of the motel office. No one was watching.

She put the car in park and jumped out. She pulled Lauren across the console into the driver's seat and leaned her head over to the side. She wedged Lauren's arm so her hand stuck up by her ear. Quickly, she removed the skates and tossed them in the back. She smoothed her hair and checked herself over quickly. No blood stains, nothing unusual. She practiced her smile in the reflection from the windows. Nice, normal thirteen year old girl.

She opened the door and heard a _bing-bong_ tone. She stepped up to the counter and waited. A man came out of the back office. He had the craziest hair Jane had ever seen, putting Collin to shame. His hair was bright blue, buzz-cut down to his skull around pink spikes that stuck up all over his head. He gave her a sullen look as if she had interrupted something vaguely worthy of his time, which she most certainly was not.

"Hi, do you have any vacancies?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"My mom sent me in to register, if that's okay."

He glanced up and saw Lauren in the driver's seat. She looked like she was talking on a cell phone.

"Please," Jane wheedled. "She's on the phone with my dad and they haven't talked in a really long time. Here ..." she pulled out one of the hundred dollar bills and put it on the counter. "You can keep the change, okay?"

Avarice convinced him where pity would not. "Sure, whatever," he said, and he pecked on his computer. "Name?"

"Lauren Forks," she replied. She invented an address and telephone number out of the blue and signed the paper he printed out for her. He slapped a key down on the counter and Jane picked it up curiously. She'd never stayed in a motel that had a key like an actual house key. She thought they all used those plastic cards. It was attached to a large, red diamond-shaped keyring that had the room number stamped on it. "Have a nice night," he said, in a tone that informed her that he did not give a shit if she did.

Jane went back out to the car and pretended to be looking for something in the back seat until he went back into the office. She strapped on one of her skates and shoved Lauren aside, sharing the driver's seat with her for the short distance to their room. They'd be looking for the car, of course. She couldn't leave it here in front of their room all night.

She dragged Aunt Esme and Lauren inside the room and hauled them both up onto one of the double beds. She was exhausted and glad that she probably wouldn't have to move them again.

She took a sheet of paper from the little pad by the phone and wrote in big, block letters: _"DON'T PANIC! EVERYTHING IS FINE. I'M DITCHING THE CAR AND WILL BE RIGHT BACK & WILL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING. JANE"_

She propped it against the phone where they'd hopefully see it if they woke up while she was gone. She thought that was unlikely, but you never knew with drugs. The dose could have been calibrated for someone of a lighter body mass. She chuckled suddenly, thinking about how weird it must be for a girl her age to know that stuff. Spending the last three years in a government research facility with only adult novels to read had given her a broad range of esoteric knowledge. Hell, she even knew the definition of _esoteric_. She only hoped whatever school she ended up attending had a group of overly-articulate nerds like herself.

Dave hopped up on the bed beside them. "Do you need to go out?" Jane asked him. She knew from talking to Edward that Dave knew a few English words, but you had to speak slowly and clearly for him to understand.

Dave laid his head down on his paws. Jane took that as a "no". She went back out to the car and strapped on her skates. She drove around to the back of the motel. A rusted-out school bus provided perfect cover. She parked the car behind it. She wondered what she could do to cover it up as she got out and then realized she probably didn't need to. It didn't look like the shiny Cadillac that Aunt Esme had in her garage. She winced. She hadn't realized she'd beat it up so badly. She hoped Aunt Esme had good insurance.

She tossed the skates in the back and started the walk back to the motel while she searched in her pocket for her cell phone. It wasn't there. Frowning, she went back to the car and searched it over, front and back and even the trunk, and couldn't find it. She went into the room and looked around, looked in the money bag, looked on the floor under the beds (she wished she hadn't done _that_; she probably wouldn't be able to sleep knowing how filthy it was) and even checked Lauren and Aunt Esme's pockets. Nothing. She still had the gun, but her phone was lost.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Jane sat down on the floor beside the bed and sobbed. She didn't know Bella's number. She didn't know where they were or how to contact them, and now that they were on the run, Bella wouldn't be able to find them, either. Dave hopped off the bed and climbed onto Jane's lap, nuzzling against her, his little tail wagging hopefully. Jane hugged him and wept into his fur.

She just had to hope that one of the grown-ups remembered Bella's number or had been told where they were going. Jane knew that the guy was named Aro and had seen a picture of the roof of his house, but that was it. She hadn't paid attention to the details, if they'd been mentioned.

Exhaustion swept over her and she yanked back the nasty-looking comforter to sprawl on the sheets. She laid the gun on the night table, but fell asleep before she could turn off the lamp.

She dreamed of Rose, her childhood imaginary friend, holding her in her arms and telling her everything would be all right.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

..

"Bella?"

"Hmm?" Bella lifted her head from the towel-pillow and looked over at Edward, who sat on the other side of the tub, the ends of his wings dangling over the side.

His voice was so soft, she could barely hear it over the sound of the hot tb jets. "I don't want you to go to Aro's house."

Bella bit her lip. "Edward ..."

"I know," he said. "You feel like you have to, to keep the rest of the team safe, but deep in your heart, you know something is wrong. Really wrong. All your insticts are screaming '_danger_.' If you go, something bad is going to happen, and you're so powerful that you'll likely be able to save everyone, but you'll pay a terrible price. Your hands ... Bella, what happens when you have to use your Gift to do everything?"

"I don't know," she confessed. "I was kinda hoping that your Highest One would toss a miracle my way."

They fell silent. Edward scooped up some bubbles and blew them off his hands.

This afternoon, they had strolled for a little longer down that country road, hand-in-hand, stealing a precious few moments to enjoy the beauty of the summer day and one another's company. A deer stepped out cautiously into the road ahead of them and her fawn tottered after her. Bella let out a soft gasp. A city girl, she had never seen a deer up close.

"Come here," Edward called. "We won't hurt you. My female would like to meet your fawn."

The doe considered and then walked toward them. The scent of human in her nose made her instincts urge her to flee, but the male could _talk_. She never knew humans could talk, or that some of them had wings.

The fawn was less wary, made bold by curiosity. She sniffed the hand that Bella extended and then stood quietly while Bella stroked her short coarse fur.

It was an amazing experience, and it was the kind of experience that Edward wanted her to have many of, for a full human lifespan.

They had to admit, after a while, that it was getting late and they should find somewhere to stay before dark. He scooped her up and took off, taking them higher and higher until Bella's skin was caressed by the cool mist of clouds. Up here, he could catch the thermal updrafts with his wings and soar great distances without having to flap his wings.

"Is this what heaven is like?" Bella asked, as she waved her hand through a tendril.

"Clouds and harps?" he asked and grinned at her. "Not at all."

"Well, what then?"

"It's whatever you want it to be," he said.

"I get my own heaven, to design as I please?"

"Something like that."

She tilted her head. "Are you being vague for a reason?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he admitted.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand."

"I know." His smile was sweet and tender. But he didn't say anything else.

They chose a chain hotel and Edward rented them a suite with a hot tub. He took Bella up to the room and kissed her before he left her, with the instructions to make herself comfortable and he'd be right back. Bella laid down on the bed and used the remote to click on the television. She flipped aimlessly though the channels until she heard him at the door and the rustle of plastic sacks.

His grin was mishevious and infectious. She found herself grinning back at him. "What did you do?" she asked.

"I got you a present," he said in a sing-song voice.

"What kind of present?"

"You'll see ... But first things first." He dug into the sack and pulled out a small red box. He opened it and pried the lid off the bottle inside. He shook out two tablets and handed them to her. "For your muscles," he said. "I can feel that they're getting sore."

"Thank you," Bella said, touched by his consideration.

He next presented her with a bottle of bubble bath, a candle and a bottle of wine. "Oh, Edward, this is so sweet!"

"That's not aaaaallll."

She laughed. His grin was so naughty, but what in the world could he have purchased at the "big box" store, known for its family-values stance on the products they carried?

Edward started the water running in the tub and Bella lit the candle and perched it on the side. She unwrapped the plastic cups by the coffee maker and poured the chilled wine into them.

She heard Edward turn on the tub jets. That man was magic, she reflected happily. He knew just what she needed, before she even realized it herself.

"ACK!" Edward shouted.

Bella threw open the bathroom door and found the room flooded with bubbles. Edward frantically punched at the button on the rim of the hot tub. Bella burst into laughter.

"Don't laugh!" he begged. "Help me!"

Bella turned off the water and hit the drain knob. She pushed the other button and the jets fell silent. Edward sagged in relief and looked at the devestation around them.

"God, Edward, how much bubble bath did you use?" Bella asked.

"Only half," he said, bewildered as to how this coud have come to pass.

"_When all else fails, read the directions_," Bella quoted. "You're only supposed to use a cap-full."

"Oh." He shuffled his feet in the bubbles and looked so doleful that Bella had to go over and give him a hug and a kiss. "It's all right, Edward. Here, I'll help you clean this up." She got the trash can and used it to scoop bubbles off the floor into the tub. After the majority of it had been cleaned up, Edward used one of the towels to dry the floor and then went down to the front desk to get clean ones. Bella rinsed the tub and ran a new bath while he was gone and that's how she came to be sitting in the tub, her head pillowed on a rolled-up towel on its rim, a cup of wine in hand, and her guardian angel begging her not to complete her mission.

She knew he was listening to the stream of thoughts through her head, all of her arguments as to why she had to do this, to protect her friends, to end the Theta Project, that she might be the only one who _could_ do it, that God had given her this Gift for a reason ...

"There's so much you haven't got to do, Bella." Edward had flecks of bubbles in his hair and she reached up to smooth them away. "There are so many things I want to experience with you. I want us to buy a little house with a lawn I can mow. I want to travel with you, and stay home with you. I want to watch Jane accept her doctorate diploma and walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. I want us to have a life together. And the longer we're a part of this mission, the more I think that - " He cut off the last words and looked away for a moment.

"Edward, I want all of those things, too," Bella said. "But you know the Theta Project won't leave us alone. We've got to destroy it and anyone associated with it or we'll never be able to have that life you want. You can't walk Jane down the aisle if we're on the run, looking over our shoulder."

"Jenks is taking the team in tonight." Edward still wasn't looking at her.

"_WHAT_?" Bella sat up so abruptly that water sloshed out onto the floor.

"That's why he wanted to talk to me. Jenks saw it as a sign from God that they were supposed to do it without you."

"It wasn't a sign from God," Bella snapped. "You swerved the car too sharply to avoid hitting a woolly worm, remember?"

"Who put that woolly worm there, Bella?" Edward's eyes met hers.

She threw up her hands. "Argh! Maybe it's woolly worm mating season. Who knows why the stupid worm crossed the road? But for God's sake, you people can't go seeing signs in everything or we're going to - " Bella stopped and took a deep breath. This wasn't Edward's fault. This was Jenks's fault. He'd told them to relax for the evening, intentionally keeping her out of the picture. Even if they flew at top speed now, they wouldn't get there in time to stop or join the team.

"Jenks said he would call afterward," Edward told her. "To let you know that everything was all right."

"Rather optimistic assumption, considering we're all pretty sure it's a trap," Bella noted.

"Have some faith in the abilities of your friends," Edward said. "Quil and Amun are both very powerful and the guys from the crew are great shots."

"Hm," Bella replied non-commitally. She just wasn't going to think about it, she decided. She would drive herself insane with worry when there was nothing she could do. She needed to distract herself, keep her mind off of it until Jenks called. _If_ Jenks called. Oh God, there she went again ...

"I might be able to help with that," Edward said, and that wicked, mischevious grin reappeared. Her mind was instantly devoted to curiosity. "Come on." He stood up and held out a hand. Her mouth went dry as she watched the water bead and stream in rivulets on his flesh. His grin became even larger as he followed the direction of her thoughts.

"Go lie down," he instructed after she'd wrapped a towel around her body. She obeyed, leaving the towel in place. She heard him in the other room, the rustle-rattle of a paperboard box, the crinkle of stiff plastic. What was he _doing_?

He came into the bedroom and he held in his hand what looked like a lilac-colored plastic tube. What in the world? She blinked in confusion. Until he turned it on and it began to hum.

"They sell _those _at ..." She lost her train of thought when he put the object to use.

* * *

><p>Jenks was thinking of his father again as he waited for everyone to gather at the car. When he was a teenager, always in trouble and always on the lookout for more, his mother had flung bitter words at him: <em>Your father would be so ashamed of you.<em>

He had pretended to shug it off, but it had left a deep wound in him, probably because he suspected it was true. His mother had died less than a year later, and it was those words, flung in the heat of argument that he remembered when he thought of her. Not the love she'd always given him, not the struggles she had gone through while trying to support and raise an asshole of son like him all on her own. Just those words. Because it had been the truth. His father would have been ashamed of the man he had become. Truth be told, Jenks himself was a little ashamed of himself, even before Edward had thrust a flaming sword beneath his chin and changed his whole perspective.

His fingers brushed against the cell phone in his pocket and he once again fought off the temptation to call Lauren. There were some things he wished he could have told her, but if things went as badly tonight as he expected they would, maybe it would be easier on her if they remained unsaid.

He shouldn't have given into temptation, damn it. When he faced his Maker, that would be one of the regrets at the top of his list. All these years, and he'd never laid a hand on her. He didn't ever want her to feel like she was just a convenient fuck for him, never wanted her to feel like he was using her the way she'd been used before. And, dear God, he'd never wanted to see her end up with a guy like him. She deserved better than that.

He'd tried to send her off to college. And when she turned that down, he tried to set her up in a regular nine-to-five office job where she could meet a guy that _worked_ for a living, someone who would buy her a house with a picket fence and she could join the fuckin' PTA or something. She refused, and for the life of him, he could never figure out why she'd want to stay with a bunch of cuthroat motherfuckers instead of settling down into a normal life.

Not that he hadn't liked having her around, and not just because she was the only one of them who could cook worth a damn, but because he geuninely _liked_ her. Girl was wicked fuckin' smart, funny as hell and _nice_. She cared about people and shit, and not just her friends. Just sitting with her in the rec room while she read ...

He shook his head to clear it. He had to get his mind in the game. He checked his guns again and slid them back into their holsters. All handguns this time, suitable for the kind of close-range combat he expected. At the small of his back, he had a large knife in a sheath. He was good with it (he didn't want to think of how good or how he had gotten that way.)

He fished a smoke out of his pocket and lit it. He offered one to Quil, who stuck it in his mouth and lit it with the tip of his finger.

"Nifty trick," Jenks noted.

"Amun taught me," Quil said. "And watch this." He held out his hand, palm-up and a ball of fire appeared in it, white hot and brilliant.

Jenks nodded. "Awesome."

Quil flicked his hand and the fire disappeared. "What's wrong, Jenks?"

"Nothing. Nothing." Jenks said it and repeated it at Quil's skeptical look. "Where the fuck is everyone_?"_

"Phoenix and Forks are gearing up. Collin ... I dunno. He was sitting in the RV starin' at Alice and Jasper. He said he'd be out in a minute. I haven't seen Amun since he and Kebi left last night."

"Really?" It wasn't like Amun to blow off something like this.

Lauren ... His fingers brushed his cell phone. Maybe just a call to say hello ...

Phoneix and Forks came out of the RV arguing about the cinematic merits of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer._ Both of them bristled with handguns, holsters hung in every conceivable location.

"You seen Amun?" Jenks asked them, when the conversation had devolved to a heated debate about whether Buffy would be able to win against Xena.

"No."

"Well we can't fuckin' go without him," Jenks said irritably. "I can't fuckin' believe this."

He hadn't finished with that sentence before he saw headlights bouncing up the campground road. "About fuckin' time," he groused as a car roared toward them, a car he had never seen before, but which was piloted by Amun. He had to dodge out of the way as Amun slammed on the breaks and the car slid to a lurching stop inches from the RV. He didn't turn off the engine. He threw the door open and rushed out to Jenks, grabbing him by his shirt collar.

"Have you seen her? he demanded.

"Who?" Jenks asked.

"Kebi, you fool! Have you seen her?"

"Not since you left."

Amun groaned and wadded his fists in his hair. "I can't find her."

"Calm down, man," Forks said. "Tell us what happened."

"This morning, I left our room. She wanted a bagel from the bakery across the street, she said. When I came back with it, she was gone. I searched the whole hotel. I searched the street. I came back here in case ..." His eyes were horrible, twin black pools of raw pain, like looking into the gaping maw of hell itself. "I can't find her!"

"Okay, dude, just chill," Phoenix said. "We'll find her. She probably just got lost and froze where she was, waiting for you to come get her."

It seemed the idea of Kebi out in the unknown by herself, frozen in place, was an even greater torment. Amun groaned and turned back to the car. He flung himself into the driver's seat. Forks and Phoenix jumped into the backseat. The driver's door swung itself shut from the force of his accelleration.

"Well," Jenks said, and kicked at a pile of gravel. "I guess we aren't going to Aro's tonight. Fuck! Bella will be back tomorrow. This was our only shot if we were gonna keep her out of it."

"Maybe she's supposed to go," Quil suggested.

Jenks didn't reply to that. He took his cell phone out of his pocket. He wondered if there was a phone call he was supposed to make. _How about a sign, good buddy?_

No sign was forthcoming. Jenks sighed and paged down through his list of contacts, and clicked on "BELLA."

It rang a long time before Bella's voice gasped into the phone. "Hello?"

"Bella? You okay?" She sounded out of breath. "I didn't ... um, interrupt anything?"

" ... No. Edward, stop that! It's Jenks!"

He heard Edward's voice say something in the background and Bella giggled. Jenks had to smile at the sound. That's the way Bella _should_ sound, young and carefree.

"I'm sure Edward told you by now that we planned to go in without you. Well, the launch has been scrubbed. Kebi is missing."

"Kebi! What happened?"

"She disappeared from Amun's hotel room. That's all I know. Forks and Phoenix went with him to search."

"I wish we could call the cops," Bella said. "Edward, stop. This is a serious discussion."

Jenks smiled. "One that can wait. Likey, he'll find her by the time you get back in the morning."

"All right." Bella giggled involuntarily and he heard a distinctive buzzing. "Edward! Don't you _dare_! And Jenks? I'm really pissed at you about you planning behind my back."

"Thought you would be," Jenks said. "What's that buzzing sound?"

He struggled not to laugh as she sputtered. Edward took the phone out of her hand. "Jenks? Bella will have to call you back in the morning."

"Yeah, I thought so. Have a good night you two." Jenks disconnected and stared at the phone in his hand for a few moments before sliding it back into his pocket.

He just wanted to hear her voice. She'd probably ask him what he'd had for dinner, because she worried about that kind of shit. And then she'd tell him what Jane and Bella's aunt had been up to because she thought other people were more interesting than she was. She'd even talk about what that little fucking dog had done before she'd talk about herself.

But right now, he felt like he could listen to a goddam sololloquiy about that fucking mutt if it was Lauren on the other end of the line.

* * *

><p>When Edward went down to get them breakfast the next morning, Bella laid down on the bed and took out her cell phone. She thumbed down through the contacts until she found "JANE" and pressed "Send."<p>

It rang endlessly. These were disposable phones and none of them had set up voice mail. Bella frowned. It was one of their saftey rules. Jane was supposed to have her phone with her at all times and she was religious about plugging it in at night to charge. She disconnected and searched the list until she found "LAUREN". When no one answered that number, she grew concerned.

She called Jenks first. "Have you spoken to Lauren?" she demanded, as soon as he answered without even saying "Hello."

"No, I havent. Why?"

"She and Jane aren't answering their phones."

Dead silence on the other end of the line greeted this statement. After a long moment, Jenks said, "I'll call you back, and she knew he was going to call himself, on the faint hope that Bella had somehow misdialed.

She heard Edward open the door and looked up at him with a face pale from axiety. Edward took her cell phone from her hand and replaced it with a cup of hot tea. "Drink that, Bella, honey."

He answered the phone himself when Jenks called back and she heard him conversing in low tones. Bella walked over to the window and looked out at the parking lot. Edward came over and put his arms around her. "Bella, we're going back to Aunt Esme's to check on them."

She nodded. That's what she had expected. But she was afraid of what they would fnd. While they didn't know, she could still pretend that it might be a false alarm. The phone had been left in Jane's pocket and washed with the laundry. Lauren had dropped hers and broken it or something. Anything but what she feared.

"They were watching the house, weren't they?" Bella said.

"Perhaps," Edward admitted.

Bella shivered and Edward pulled her more firmly against himself, and wrapped his wings around her tightly, but this time, even her safe, white world couldn't shut out her fears.


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-six

..

"Please wake up," Jane whispered. Tears trickled unnoticed down her cheeks and her voice was a croak from a tightening throat. "Please?"

She'd thought for sure when she woke up in the morning, Aunt Esme and Lauren would be awake already, looking around at their surroundings with bewildered expressions, or maybe brewing themselves a cup of joe in the little crappy two-cup coffee maker.

Jane's eyes had flown open and she'd sat up eagerly, only to see Lauren and Aunt Esme laying in the same positions she'd placed them last night. Dave hopped on her lap, wiggling in his I-gotta-go dance and Jane walked numbly to the door to open it for him.

"You need me to come with you?" she asked, but he trotted straight to the strip of grass between the door and the parking lot. Jane left the door open and went to sit back down on her bed.

She'd hoped there would be a grown-up to take over this morning and she could go back to being someone who let older, wiser people make the decisions. That there would be a grown-up who knew exactly what they should do next and how to contact Bella and Edward. (She'd even settle for being able to talk to that creepy Amun guy.)

She never expected them to still be asleep. "You've got to wake up," Jane told them. "You've got to. I don't want to _do_ this any more. I want ... I want my _Mom_." Jane hung her head and sobbed into her hands.

Dave came back inside and put a paw on her leg. She picked him up and shut the door before resuming her spot on the bed. He gently licked her hand and bumped his head beneath it, urging her to pet him. She did, but tears still rolled down her face and her breath came in hitches.

What was she going to do now? Jane had no idea. After she'd cried for a while, she forced herself to stop because it wasn't helping. She didn't feel any better after getting the tears out, either. And she'd cried herself into a whopping case of the hiccups.

She went into the bathroom and blew her nose on a piece of toilet paper. She washed her face and stared into the mirror. She looked awful, her eyes red and puffy and her hair like a crow's nest. She combed it with her fingers the best she could and caught sight of the friendly little sign beside the sink: "_Forget Something? We Want Your Stay_ _To Be As Comfortable As Possible, So If You've Left A Basic Toiletry Item At Home, Ask At Our Front Desk For a Complimentary Replacement."_

There, at least, was something that she could do. Jane sniffled and straightened her rumpled pajamas. She turned to Dave, who sat on the end of her bed, watching her. Her eyes met his and his little tail began to swish across the polyester bedspread. "I'll be right back," she told him. "Please watch over them. I know you're not a pro at peopletalk but Edward said you do understand some stuff. Guard them, okay? _Guard_."

Dave seemed to get what she was saying. He trotted over and sat at the foot of the bed. He seemed to be very proud to have been given the assignment.

She got her note from the night before and drew a line through "DITCHING THE CAR" and replaced it with "AM AT THE FRONT DESK". She felt in her pocket and found the other hundred dollar bill she'd taken from the duffel in there, back when she hadn't known how much a hotel room cost for the night.

She'd have to rent it again for tonight so they'd have somewhere to stay during the daylight hours. She couldn't drive around during the day. Someone would call the cops if they saw a kid who looked as young as she did driving a car and she really didn't want to have to use her power on a police officer.

She took the room key and put it into her pocket. She opened the door a crack and peeked outside. There was only one car in the parking lot, parked right next to the office. Jane watched the treeline on the other side of the road for a moment, half-expecting to see guys with binoculars watching their room. She stepped outside, and used her foot to gently nudge Dave back inside when he would have followed her.

"Don't guard _me_," she told him. "Guard _them."_ She shut the door firmly and walked to the front desk.

The place looked even more dismal in daylight. The paint was peeling and all of the doors were scuffed. The sidewalk in front of the rooms was heaved and cracked. If Bella was here, she'd trip for sure. Edward always held her arm over rough terrain like this because Bella's feet seemed to seek out things to trip over. The thought made Jane smile a little.

The door knob was surrounded by a patch of grime. Jane pulled open the door with a mental reminder to wash her hands after she got back to the room. The door screeched on unoiled hinges and she heard that _bing bong_ tone she remembered from last night. A plump, middle-aged woman emerged from the back. She had the smoothest, most perfect skin Jane had ever seen, a rich chocolate color, and wide-spaced eyes that surveyed Jane with suspicion. Her nametag read "BECKY" in crooked letters.

"Hi. My mom sent me up to see if we could stay for another night." Jane took the hundred dollar bill from her pocket.

The woman shrugged. "Sure. We ain't busy this time of year." She pecked around on the computer. Jane had a moment of panic when she realized she couldn't remember the fake name she'd used last night, but the woman didn't ask.

While she waited, she looked around the room and saw a box of donuts sitting by a coffee urn and her stomach cramped with hunger. "Are these for the guests?" she asked.

"Sure, honey. Go ahead and have one."

Jane grabbed a sugar donut and bit into it ravenously.

"Get some more of them, if you want," the woman said, her eyes still glued to the computer. "Can't buy less than a dozen from our supplier, and you and your mom are our only guests."

Jane took two more and wrapped them in napkins. "Thank you."

"No problem. They'd just go to waste. I can't eat 'em. I gain five pounds if I just look at the box."

Jane chuckled politely. She handed over her money and accepted her change.

"Anything else I can get you, sweetie?"

"Um ... can I get some toothbrushes? And some toothpaste? And a comb? My mom and me ... we left so suddenly we didn't take our stuff with us."

The woman's eyes softened in compassion. "Your dad?" she asked.

Jane nodded and tried to look pitiful, which wasn't very difficult, considering her circumstances. "I'll pay for them," she offered.

The woman clucked her tongue and held up a basket that contained single-packaged toiletries. "Just get what you need, honey. They're free."

Jane grabbed a comb and one of the small tubes of toothpaste. The woman was looking back at her computer screen, so Jane quickly snatched three toothbrushes. "Thanks!" she said.

"Anytime, honey. I hope things work out with your mom and dad."

"Me too," Jane replied, and headed back to the room with her loot. She unlocked the door and laid the donuts on the little table that sat between the beds. Dave looked at them hopefully.

"Sorry, little guy," Jane told him. "Those are for Aunt Esme and Lauren, and besides, I really don't think dogs are supposed to have sugar." An idea occurred to her. "I'll be right back."

She put the donuts on top of the TV, just so Dave wouldn't be tempted, and followed the signs to the vending area. There wasn't much of a selection, but Jane thought that Wheat Thins probably wouldn't be too bad for him. She bought two small bags and headed back to the room.

She'd been right about Dave and temptation. He was seated in front of the television, staring up at the napkin-wrapped donuts with a calculating look in his eye.

"Here, these are better for you," Jane said. She ripped open both bags and flattened one of them to use as a plate for him. He looked at the pile of crackers and then back at the donuts.

"Yeah, I'd rather have a donut, too. Eat your crackers." She took the top off the coffee carafe and soaked a wash cloth under the faucet, then poured a dab of the hotel shampoo on it. With her new impromptu dishcloth, she scrubbed the inside of the glass carafe before rinsing it, filling it with water and setting it on the floor for Dave.

He sniffed it and gave her a bewildered look. He was smelling the ghosts of coffee past, Jane thought. "It's okay. I know it's stinky, but I washed it out." He tentatively lapped at the water, and then decided it was acceptable.

She propped up her pillows against the headboard and leaned back against them. Aunt Esme and Lauren still hadn't moved. By her estimate, it had been twelve hours since they'd been given the shots. How long could one shot last? Were they in trouble? Should she call 911?

Jane leaned over and put her fingers against Aunt Esme's throat. Her pulse was steady and she seemed to be breathing normally. Lauren, too. They weren't in distress, so it didn't seem like an emergency situation, at least not enough of an emergency for her to risk them getting caught at the hospital. From what she'd heard, Bella had been so afraid to go to the hospital, she'd let her finger half rot off rather than risk it. Jane decided that she'd give them a few more hours and continue monitor their pulses and breathing. She just had to hope they'd wake up on their own.

Jane listened to Dave crunch his crackers and closed her eyes. She's never really believed in a god, even after she learned what Edward was, but she now sent up a silent prayer, consisting of the same six words repeated over and over: _"Please let them be all right."_

* * *

><p>Edward circled the house and they both studied the grounds for any sign of people watching. There were tire tracks across Aunt Esme's lawn and through her precious flower beds. Bella's heart sank at the sight.<p>

The garage door was open. Edward flew them inside and landed on the concrete floor. There were black skid marks besmirching the perfect expanse of gray. Aunt Esme actually mopped her garage floor and wouldn't have tolerated such a mark. Bella pinched her lips between her teeth to hold back the whimper that rose in her throat.

The door was unlocked. They went inside the house and through the kitchen. Bella saw a chair wedged under the doorknob of the door which led to the garden behind the house. From there, they proceeded through the dining room and into they foyer. and Bella choked back a scream when she saw the body beside the stairs. The bloody, broken spindles and the gaping hole in his stomach told the tale. Edward put an arm around her shoulders and they walked up the stairs together.

Bella was trying hard not to cry. Her breath came in choked gasps. Edward stopped her on the landing and simply held her in his arms for a few minutes until she had calmed somewhat. She looked up at him and nodded. He stroked his hand over her hair and cupped her cheek. "You can do this," he said.

She nodded again and squared her shoulders. The first room they entered was Aunt Esme's. Bella could smell a faint hint of the W_hite Shoulders_ perfume that Aunt Esme loved. The covers on her bed were in disarray and that alone would have told Bella that they had left in a hurry. Aunt Esme was militant about having her bed made properly.

Edward bent down and picked up something. An empty syringe. He showed it to her wordlessly, and Bella closed her eyes. They found another in the bedroom beside Aunt Esme's. It was Lauren's room; her shoes were under the edge of the bed.

They crossed the landing into Jane's room, identifiable by her Justin Beiber t-shirt draped over the back of the vanity table's chair. A man's body lay on the floor, face down, his hands still clutching his head. A trickle of bloody fluid had trickled from each ear, a reddish rivulet on both cheeks.

Edward found another syringe, over by the wall, but this one was full. Bella's brow crinkled when he held it up.

"Jane fought back," Bella said slowly. "They weren't able to give her the shot." She looked under the bed, in the small closet and said, "Her shoes aren't here. They wouldn't have stopped to put on her shoes if they took her, and she wouldn't have paused to put them on before she fought the intruders."

She thought about the skid marks in the garage and the tire tracks over the lawn. "One of them drove Aunt Esme's car. At least one of them got away and Jane was with them. But why haven't they called?" Bella looked behind the nightstand beside Jane's bed, where Jane usually laid her phone at night. "Her cell phone cord is still there."

"She wouldn't have taken the phone without the cord," Edward said. He took out his own phone and began to dial. "Jenks? Yes. Ditch the phones. All of them." He listened for a long moment. "Kebi doesn't have a phone of her own or know his number. Tell him to ditch it and do it fast."

Jenks had a bag of backup phones already activated. Edward tore a small bit of paper out of the front page of a book that was lying on the table (_Little Women_, by Louisa May Alcott) and wrote down a number. "Move the RV to the backup site. I'll call you when we get a new phone," Edward said. He disconnected and pulled apart his phone, then crumbled the SIM card in his hand. He took Bella's phone and gave it the same treatment.

"But Jane won't be able to call us," Bella protested.

Edward shook his head. "She doesn't know the numbers anyway. She mentioned that last week. We change them so fast that all of us rely on our contacts lists to call one another."

"Do you really think they got away?" Bella asked.

He considered. "Yeah, I do.

"But how will we find them?"

"I don't know."

Bella sat down on the bed. She almost hoped the Theta Project was still watching the house and would send in some of their goons. A hot ball of anger burned in her stomach and it seemed to expand and expand ...

She closed her eyes when she head the windows shatter. "Aunt Esme is going to kill me."

"It's not your fault," Edward soothed. He sat down beside her and she laid her head on his shoulder. "You can't help it."

"I've got to get this under control," Bella said. "But first, we have to find our daughter. Do you remember seeing Aunt Esme's car? Do you remember what it looks like?"

Edward shook his head. "I never went into the garage."

"Aunt Esme has a thing for Caddys," Bella said. "But that doesn't narrow it down much when we don't know the model or color."

"They probably would have holed up in a motel," Edward said and snapped his fingers. "So we just start checking nearby hotels, going around in widening circles until we hit on the right one."

Bella hugged him. It was a start, at least. They had _some_ sort of plan, which was better than sitting around doing nothing, hoping an idea or clue would come to them.

Edward held out his hand and he helped her through the window onto the porch roof. Glass crunched under Bella's sneakers and she sent a silent apology to Aunt Esme. He was scanning the treeline.

"Why do you think they left the bodies?" Bella asked.

"Perhaps so that local law enforcement would find them and search for Aunt Esme as a potential victim or suspect?"

That sounded like the underhanded way that the Theta Project operated. Edward scooped her up and leapt from the porch roof, his wings catching the air and lifting them skyward with only a few beats.

* * *

><p>Around two o'clock, Lauren moaned. Jane was instantly on her feet. She crawled up on the bed beside Lauren and patted her cheeks. "Lauren? Lauren? Can you hear me."<p>

Lauren pried open her eyes with difficulty. "Jane?"

"Yeah!" Jane felt her eyes brim with tears, but this time it was from happiness. "Are you okay?"

"Thirsty."

"I'll get you some water." Jane hopped off the bed and unwrapped one of the cups by the ice bucket. She filled it from one of the taps and carried it over to where Lauren lay. Lauren was too weak to pull herself to a sitting position, so Jane slid in beside her and supported her shoulders while Lauren gulped from the cup.

"Thank you," she sighed. "Wh- what _happened_?"

"Theta Project," Jane said. "They found us. They gave you and Aunt Esme a shot to knock you out. I got us away."

"Where ... are we?"

Jane picked up her note and read the town's name off the logo printed at the top.

"Never ... heard of it."

"Me either, and let's hope the Theta Project hasn't."

"Jenks ..." Lauren sighed.

"I lost our phones," Jane confessed. "I was hoping you might know the number."

Lauren shook her head and Jane's hope sank. "Well, maybe Aunt Esme does. She doesn't have a cell phone, so Bella would have had to tell her the number to call in case of an emergency." It was a long-shot, but Jane needed something to hope for or she was going to break down in tears again.

Lauren wasn't in any shape to take over as the grown-up in charge. She was as weak as a newborn kitten, her mind fuzzy from the dope and in no shape to move them on to another location.

Jane ordered a pizza from the only place that delivered to the motel. It was awful, but at least it was food. Dave seemed to enjoy the crusts, anyway. Lauren only picked at hers. She said she was too nauseated to eat, and Jane had no idea how to fix that.

Aunt Esme woke a couple of hours later and she was really sick. She threw up in the trash can that Jane grabbed when she saw her gagging. (Jane was really grossed out by having to rinse it out, but she supposed this was part of the stuff grown-ups had to do. She would be very, very glad to hand off grown-up duty as soon as possible.) It was a while before they could even get her to keep a cup of water down, and she couldn't even look at a slice of the pizza.

Jane considered calling 911 again, but Aunt Esme insisted she'd be fine in a while. Someone had told her once that grown-ups sometimes didn't know they were sick or didn't want all the fuss and bother of seeing a doctor when they really needed one. But Lauren didn't seem all that worried about it, and so Jane decided to trust their judgement.

"Edward will find us," she told Lauren as she helped her walk to the bathroom. "You'll see. He'll be here soon."

Lauren gave her a faint smile before she shut the bathroom door. "I'm sure he will."

Jane resisted the urge to kick the bathroom door and holler at Lauren that she didn't need to be patronized. She had to have faith in _something_ and it might as well be her new dad. He would rescue them. He would know what to do.

She just hoped he would get here soon because she was running out of optimism.

* * *

><p>Becky was still working the front desk when the most beautiful man she had ever seen strolled through the door. Her jaw dropped. It was worth it to work overtime (that bitch Cheryl had never showed up for her shift) just to see this guy.<p>

She had never believed people that beautiful really existed. Movies stars and models were all makeup, and those catty articles in the magazines confirmed it when they showed what those people looked like when they ran to the convenience store without painting on their face or having a hairstylist work for hours to achieve the perfect "natural" look. They looked like ordinary people with blemishes and split ends, until Hollywood transformed them with airbrushing and cosmetics.

But this man ... He was perfection, one of God's most glorious creations. She tried to re-boot her brain, which seemed to be stuck on the Blue Screen of Death at the moment. He was saying something to her.

"... my daughter. Please, if you've seen her ..."

"What?" Becky finally managed.

"I'm looking for a woman with a little girl. About thirteen with brown hair, small for her age." He held out his hand to indicate her height.

"Your daughter?" Becky said. Fuckin' figured a guy that looked like that would be married, but what woman in her right mind would ever leave him? "She don't look like you," Becky said.

He gripped the edge of the counter. "You've seen her?"

"Uhh," Becky said. She was supposed to protect the privacy of guests. She hadn't said anything to that cop-looking guy who had come in and demanded to see her register for the night. He'd just rubbed her the wrong way. But this man, his beautiful eyes pleaded with her and she couldn't resist him, not at all. "One-oh-two," she said and pointed.

"Thank God," the man said. "And thank _you."_

"Welcome," Becky murmured._ Would you look at that ass_? She sighed and watched him gesture to a woman who waited in the shrubs near their road sign. _Weird._ Maybe the new stepmother or something. The dark haired woman ran over to him and clutched his arm. He pointed and she dashed to the door, hammering on it with her fist. Becky saw it open and the little girl came out and threw her arms around the woman and then the man. They all jumped and laughed and cried and a little puppy (No Pets Allowed, but Becky wasn't going to say anything) bounced around their ankles, yapping with joy.

Becky smiled. It felt good to play a small part in reuniting a family like that. Good thing Cheryl wasn't here. That bitch probably would have told him no and then called the cops, like the girl had been kidnapped or something.

* * *

><p>Jane was with Bella in the front of an ancient Ford, which Edward had "borrowed" from the a car lot (Lauren knew how to hotwire) after sliding an envelope with the asking price of the car into their mail slot.<p>

Aunt Esme had made a tiny sound of dismay when she saw the ruins of her beautiful car, which they all agreed was too conspicuous. Thankfully, Aunt Esme had simply given her a kiss and thanked Jane for saving her, rather than make a fuss about it.

The Ford had bench seats. Lauren and Aunt Esme were sleeping in the back, and Jane was seated in the front between Edward and Bella. Bella had let Edward drive after extracting a weird promise that he wouldn't swerve for worms. Jane wondered what _that_ was all about.

Jane had her head laid on Bella's shoulder. Dave was curled up on her lap, sound asleep and Bella was petting him gently.

"Mom?" Jane said.

"Mm?"

"I did something ... Something really awful."

"What?"

"I killed someone." Jane's voice was so soft that it was nearly lost in the sound of the hum of the car's tires on the pavement.

"I know," Bella said simply. She put an arm around Jane's shoulders and Jane scooted closer.

"The first guy was an accident. He just fell over the bannister. But the other guy? I killed him with my Gift." If anyone would understand that, it would be Bella. Jane gnawed on her lower lip. "I ... I hurt him. Over and over. And then he died."

"Jane, you understand the concept of self-defense," Edward said.

Jane shook her head. "It wasn't that. He was already down from the first time that I ... From the first time that I hurt him. And I did it because I was mad. I didn't know he would die ... but I was glad when he did."

"Jane, are you asking me if you're evil, or if you're going to hell for this?" Bella asked.

Jane was shocked. She hadn't been able to put the vaguely uneasy feeling she had into words. Maybe because she was afraid of what the answer might be.

"Do you want to hurt innocent people?" Bella asked.

"No!" Jane said. "I mean, back when I was at the center, it was like I wanted to hurt everyone because I was so angry about what had happened to me, and having to grow up in that shit hole - oops - I mean, that dump. And Victoria, she was the same way, hating everybody for having our lives stolen away. But after I got away from there, and after I was around you guys for a while ... I didn't want to be angry and mean any more. Because it eats at you. It eats a hole right through you that nothing will ever fill."

"And you didn't mean to kill him?" Bella continued.

"No, I didn't. I mean, I didn't even know I _could._" Jane did not want to tell Bella about the small exhilaration that she had felt at learning that, but she thought that Bella probably already knew.

"You don't think ordinary people ever snap and hit someone?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Jane, you're human, and there's only so much a person can take before they snap. The difference with us is that we have power in our 'fists', and as some-movie-I-can't-remember once said, '_With great power comes great responsibility.'_ We have to be careful of how we use it to make sure we don't hurt innocent people. You saw what happened at Denny's when I lost control."

"You didn't mean to," Jane protested.

"Intend doesn't matter," Bella sighed. "People got hurt because of me. And I feel awful about it. But that guilt is valuable, Jane. If you were evil, you wouldn't care about who you hurt or why."

Jane thought about it, but she was so weary that the words just seemed to swirl through her mind like a whirlwind. She closed her eyes and was asleep within moments. Her head drooped down and she let out a little snore that made Bella chuckle. She moved Jane to a more comfortable position.

Edward glanced over at Bella. "You might want to take your own advice," he said gently.

She nodded. "I'm trying."


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Seven

..

Lauren threw open the door of the car before it had come to a complete stop and ran to Jenks, who was also running in their direction. They met in a passionate kiss in the center of the campground.

"Laurie, Laurie," he whispered between kisses. "Thank God ... Laurie."

"I love you, Jenks. I love you." Tears streaked down Lauren's face and her voice shook.

"And here I always thought you were a smart girl," Jenks said with a smile, though tears gleamed in his own eyes. "Ah, fuck, Lauren, I love you, too."

"You do?" She had a terrible hope in her eyes, wanting to believe it but desperately afraid it might not be true.

"More than I know how to say, 'cause I'm not all romantic and shit, but yeah, I do."

She jumped up into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist and their kiss was hot enough to put the forest around them in danger of spontaneous combustion. Jenks spun around and pinned her against the side of a nearby tree. Lauren moaned and tangled her fingers in his hair.

"Um, I'm not sure I should be watching this," Jane said. "It's rapidly edging past a PG-13 rating."

They broke from the kiss and Lauren sobbed into his neck. Jenks closed his eyes and held her. He whispered something into her ear that made her clutch him even harder.

Edward turned to Bella with a smile and put his arm around her waist. He was happy for them. He was always happy when one of their friends found love. And speaking of which, Alice and Jasper stood beside the RV, their hands clasped. They turned to each other with soft smiles and Jasper gave her a sweet, soft peck on the lips.

Collin sat on top of one of the picnic tables, smoking a cigarette, his eyes intent on them. Bella made a note to talk to him about it because the creepiness factor was increasing steadily.

They walked to the RV and accepted the hugs and "Welcome backs" of their friends. Jane had her hair rumpled by the guys (which she secretly hated but accepted with good-natured grace). They all greeted the older woman in their midst politely.

Bella introduced her. "Guys, this is my Aunt Esme."

"She's the one with the yucky chocolate," Edward offered. Everyone nodded, as if this made sense to them.

Aunt Esme shook her head in amusement. "I don't know _what_ you two have against Godiva."

"Can we ... uh ... just call you Auntie, or something?" Forks asked and scratched his head. "It could get real fuckin' confusing with two of you."

"Oh, I shan't be staying," Aunt Esme said.

Bella blinked. "Where will you go? Aunt Esme, it isn't safe. The Theta Project ..."

"Oh, I'll be fine, dear, don't you worry. I have connections."

"Look, lady, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think your membership to the country club is really gonna help you right now," said Phoenix.

Aunt Esme snickered. "Not exactly," she said. "All I'm going to say is that I went to college at Berkely back in the 1960s. I made some friends, and some of those friends are still underground to this day." She turned to Bella. "I probably won't see you again, my dear. Not for a very long time, if ever."

"I'm sorry, Aunt Esme," Bella said. "I shouldn't have dragged you into this. I really didn't imagine they would be watching you."

"Pfft," Aunt Esme said and waved a hand. "I expected something along those lines sooner or later. As I said, 1960s, Berkeley ... you catch the drift."

"Holy shit, were you, like, a Black Panther?" Forks asked, eying her with a newfound respect. "Or one of those Weatherman people?"

"Weather Underground, you moron," Phoenix said. "Al Roker is a weatherman."

"No, I really think they _were_ called Weathermen," Forks insisted.

Aunt Esme chuckled. "Something like that. Anyway, I should be going." She kissed Bella on the cheek. "At Grand Central in New York City, there's a rental locker, 1092-C. If you ever need to contact me, slip a note inside. Drop me a line now and then and let me know how you're doing."

"I will. Thanks for everything, Aunt Esme." Bella hugged her, and Edward hugged her too. Her hands brushed his back and she froze as a small frown tugged at her lips. She looked up at him in confusion and then her eyes widened in awe.

"I always get a kick out of watching the noobs when they discover the wings," Forks commented. "Hey, Auntie, will you give me a ride to town so I can steal us another car?"

"Sure, sure," Aunt Esme said, her features slackened in a daze. She followed Forks toward the car and then turned back to face Edward. "Take care of her," she commanded.

"That's my only purpose," Edward replied and wrapped his wings around Bella. "And my only desire." Under their concealing softness, they kissed: long, slow and sweet.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Bella?"<p>

Bella was sitting by the fire pit, roasting another hot dog with marshmallows for Edward. Lauren's idea for a campfire dinner had been a smash hit. (With Quil around, there was never going to be any trouble getting a campfire started.) Edward had found that he liked hot dogs, but when Alice had accidentally bumped his stick with her own and smeared the marshmallows she was toasting onto his fourth hot dog, he had discovered a new favorite.

She withdrew the stick from the fire and used a plastic knife to smear the gooey marshmallow onto the hotdog before sliding it into a bun and handing it to Edward. "Last one," she warned.

"I will fly and get some more," he offered.

"Bella?"

"Edward, this is your _ninth_," Bella pointed out.

"Is that wrong?" he asked.

"Don't hold him back," Forks said. "I wanna see how many of them he can eat before he explodes. _Boosh!_" He made an exploding motion with his hands. "Nothing left but a pair of smoking hiking boots and a few little feathers floating down."

"You can't really explode from eating too much," Edward chided him. "I know. I looked it up."

"Bella?"

Bella finally realized that someone was quietly calling her name. She turned her head toward the sound and saw Collin back by the end of the RV, partially in shadow. He motioned to her.

"I'll be right back." She kissed Edward's cheek and went over to lean against the RV's bumper. "What's up?" she asked Collin.

His eyes were, as always, on Alice and Jasper. The two of them were giggling because Alice had overheated her marshmallow and they were trying to catch it between the graham crackers with little success.

"Bella, how do I get Alice back?"

"You can't," said Bella, bluntly.

"I need to tell her I made a mistake," Collin said. "I should never have-" He stopped and ran a hand through his mohawk. He was letting his hair grow out and instead of a sharp, erect ridge, it now flopped listlessly down onto his head. "I should never have done a lot of things, I think."

"It's good that you recognize it, but she's moved on now, Collin."

He narrowed his eyes. "If it wasn't your brother we were talking about, would you say something different?"

"That's not fair," Bella said. "I won't deny that I always hoped that Jasper would be able to win her over but not just because he's my brother. It's because I know he'll treat her well and do everything he can to see that she gets what she needs and make her happy."

"I fucked it up," Collin rasped. "I never meant to hurt her."

"But you did."

"I want to be better, really I do. I'm just not ... sensitive and shit."

"Because you don't _want_ to be. You're afraid of opening up, Collin. You're afraid of being hurt, so you put on this tough-guy exterior."

"I'm not afraid," Collin said stubbornly.

"Yes, you are. It takes a very strong and confident man to be himself and show a woman his heart. You don't have that kind of courage. You can't take off the mask. And you're selfish. You think about what _you_ want instead of what Alice needs."

He looked stricken and Bella regretted putting it so harshly, but maybe that was what was needed to get through to him. "Do you love her, Collin?"

He rubbed his forehead. "I- I don't know."

Bella's voice was gentle. "I don't think that you do. I think that you're just worried that you let a good thing go. And that's true. But you and Alice weren't right for each other, Collin. And I think that someday, you'll look back on this and realize that I'm right. Your true love is out there somewhere, but you've got a lot of changes you need to make before you'll be ready for her."

"What kind of changes?" Collin eyed her with suspicion like she was going to tell him he needed to learn about interior decorating and get a subscription to _Cosmo_.

"That's not for me to tell you. That's something you have to figure out on your own."

"Aw, Jesus, don't go getting all cryptic on me now," Collin grated.

"I'm not trying to be cryptic," Bella retorted. "I'm telling you that _you_ have to figure out where you need to change. It's called 'soul searching' for a reason. I can't search your soul for you. Only you and your angel can do that."

Collin froze. "I have an angel?"

Bella refrained, with difficulty, from rolling her eyes. "Yes, you do. I told you. Everybody does, unless they turn evil."

"How would I know if I was evil?" Collin tried to sound casual, but she could hear the note of strain in his voice, a strain that she recognized.

Bella patted his arm. "You'd stop worrying that you were. The first thing you need to do is learn how to listen. Listen to that little voice in your heart because it will steer you towards the light."

She gave him a small smile and then headed back to the campfire to sit down beside her own angel, and as she did so, she reflected on how fortunate she was to have her angel here, with her, to be able to hear his voice with her ears, clearly, rather than straining to follow a whisper in her heart. Alice had admitted how difficult it was for her to hear Emmett. Maybe Jane was fortunate, too, because she'd told Bella about how often she dreamed of her "childhood invisible friend."

"Chilly?" Edward asked when goosebumps raised on her arms. He wrapped his wing around her, a soft, warm blanket. She snuggled against his side.

"He's right on the edge," Edward said softly. "He's teetering on the brink of darkness."

"I think Amun is, too," Bella said. She had seen him only once, briefly, since her return when he had stopped by to check to see if Kebi had somehow found her way to their campground. According to Forks and Phoenix, he was doing a more obsessive version of Edward's idea of searching in ever-widening circles. He had drawn a sketch of her (quite good, Bella thought) and was passing out copies to everyone he met on the streets as he doggedly searched every inch of the city. He looked ill, his face drawn and pale, his eyes feverish with pain and worry. Bella hadn't realized how deeply he'd cared for Kebi and she felt badly for him, but she privately thought that searching the city was a waste of time. It was most likely that the Theta Project had taken her, and he'd be better off spending his time searching the server data as Ben was doing, trying to find the location of another facility.

Alice tried hard to find a vision of Kebi, but she was still blocked. Amun, who was the one doing the blocking - though by accident or on purpose was still a matter of debate amongst the team - seemed angry at Alice that she hadn't seen and warned him of Kebi's disappearance. Bella told her not to take it personally because Amun just wasn't himself right now.

She sighed and laid her head on Edward's shoulder. "Did you decide against going to get more hot dogs?"

"I'm not," he said, morosely. "Alice reminded me that gluttony is a sin."

Bella stuck her tongue out at Alice. "Spoilsport."

Amun returned as they were cleaning up the campfire debris. Even Collin left his solitary vigil on the periphery to pitch in and Bella gave him an encouraging smile for it.

Amun got out of the car slowly, like an old man. "I cannot find her," he said dully, the same thing he said every time he came back.

"We'll find her. I promise." Esme hugged Amun and Bella was surprised to see him accept it.

"Are you hungry?" Lauren asked. "There aren't any hot dogs left, but I have -"

"I don't eat pork," Amun reminded her. His tone was cool and distant.

Lauren flushed. "Oh, right, sorry."

A pair of headlights flashed on the road and they all looked around, doing a quick mental headcount. They had the campground to themselves (ensured by Jenks, who had paid to rent every lot) and everyone was accounted for. There should be no one approaching, especially at this time of night.

The men whipped out guns and took cover behind trees, the RV, the cars. "Get Lauren inside," Jenks yelled to Alice, who hastened to obey. Jasper darted inside the RV and returned with a gun of his own, and stood guard at the RV's door. He held the gun awkwardly, but Bella knew he'd use it to defend Alice if he had to.

"It's a fuckin' Express Delivery truck!" Forks said. "What in the holy fat fuck is an Express Delivery truck doing out here?"

"About to deliver a fuckload of trouble, most likely," Jenks said. "Stay frosty, people. Could be full of _federales._"

"Let's light the bitch up," Phoenix suggested. "Ask fuckin' questions later."

Quil flicked his wrists and balls of fire appeared in his palms.

"No!" Bella cried. "That could be an innocent delivery driver. Just wait ... please."

"Can you toss up a shield?" This came from Ben, who had left his laptop in the RV to join them, a rifle propped against his shoulder.

"Remember that it's up," Bella told them. "Don't fire until I say I've dropped it."

The truck rolled to a stop, its brakes screeching painfully. There was a long pause and then a man wearing a black uniform stepped from the opening on its side. "I got a delivery for a Bella Swan."

Dave escaped from Alice's arms and bolted through the door of the RV. He ran across the camp ground and braced his little legs in front of the man whose arrival had alarmed his entire pack. He growled his biggest, meanest, most-threatening growl.

The Express Delivery driver glanced around at the men crouched behind the vehicles and leaning against trees, and then down at the tiny, snarling puppy and decided it would be best if he stayed right where he was.

"I'm Bella Swan." Bella stepped forward and both Dave and Edward followed her. Edward had his sword in its scabbard hidden behind his leg and Dave had his little teeth bared.

The man gestured to his clipboard nervously. "Can I get you to sign here?"

Bella dropped her shield partially and walked slowly up to him, Edward right behind her. Dave edged up in front to keep the baddog back a respectful distance from the winged-man's female.

It worked. The driver had to stretch from his position to hand Bella the clipboard. Bella took it and quickly scrawled her loopy signature along the bottom line.

The package he handed her was about the size of a magazine, an inch or so thick and weighed a couple of pounds. Bella thanked him and the guy retreated to his truck quickly. Dave pranced around in victory as she watched its taillights bounce away.

Jenks took the package from her. "No fuckin' way you're opening that."

"What? It's mine."

"I know. Go stand over there." He nodded toward the RV. "And take that little fuckin' dog with you."

"Come on, Bella," Edward coaxed.

"You're on his side?"

He nodded. "We don't know what's in that package. It could hurt you." He had that look on his face that meant he wouldn't be swayed. Bella sighed and conceded. She scooped up a very proud Dave and told him he was a good boy. His whole body wiggled with glee. She leaned against the side of the RV and picked at her nails while she waited.

Alice opened the window above her head. "Is it safe to come out now?"

"_NO_!" Jenks barked from his seat at the picnic table on the opposite side of the campground. "Stay the fuck back, all of you."

"Little testy, isn't he?" Alice commented. She leaned in the windowsill. Bella handed Dave up to her and Alice deposited him on the couch. "I made some coffee. Want a cup?"

"Please," Bella replied and Alice handed it down to her. She sipped the deliciously hot brew and watched as Ben, Jenks and Amun surveyed the package laying on the picnic table. They seemed to be deep in discussion. Finally, Jenks took his knife out of its holster and handed it to Amun, then he and Ben retreated a safe distance.

Ever so delicately, Amun slowly slid the knife below the flap, edging it forward a millimeter at a time. He peeked in the package when he had a small hole and then continued. Bella was biting her nails by the time he had finished.

"It appears to be an iPad," he announced.

"Destroy it!" Forks hollered. "They got, like, GPS and shit in those things."

"Moron," Phoenix said conversationally, "they already know where she is. The campground address is right on the fuckin' label."

"Oh," said Forks.

"'_Oh_' is right," Phoenix told him and he smiled at Forks affectionately. "I swear to Christ, you are the _dumbest _motherfucker I know."

Amun had examined the device from all angles during this exchange. "I believe it is safe," he announced.

"You sure?" Jenks said.

Amun shrugged. "As much as I can be. Bella, shield yourself and approach."

She walked over to the picnic table and sat down beside Amun. Edward stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. She shielded the three of them, concentrating hard to make it as strong as possible.

Amun propped it upright and pushed the button on the side.

An image appeared on the screen. A live video feed of Aro Volturi. Bella recognized him from the photographs she had seen in old newspaper clippings that Ben had found, detailing the awards he'd received during his military career.

"Hello, Bella," he said.

She didn't reply.

"I've contacted you this way because we have a proposal for you."

"Who is 'we'?" she asked.

Another man entered the image. Bella let out a blurt of surprised laughter as she recognized a face she had seen many, many times on the evening news. "Hello," she said. "I voted for you. I mean, I voted for your running-mate, so I suppose that means I voted for you, too. "

"The party appreciates your support," he said in a wry tone.

"I suppose this means you're the Big Guy, right?"

"It's not my official job title, but I'm called that by some of my subordinates," he said. "I've found it's better to keep real names out of a situation like this."

"What do you want?"

"To put a proposal before you, as Aro said. A peace treaty, if you will."

"What kind of treaty?"

"The simplest kind of all. An immediate cease-fire. You don't bother us. We don't bother you. That is all."

She shook her head. "Not good enough. Here are my terms: The Theta Project is immediately terminated, dismantled, abolished ... whatever you want to call it, never to return. You release any Gifted persons that you are now holding, and you never bother any of them again. You give any babies you made in that sick breeding program of yours to their mothers or fathers. You end it all, or I will destroy you. That's _my_ final offer."

"I'm not so sure you can carry out that threat," the Big Guy said. "We know about your weaknesses, Bella. We know about that small stroke you suffered during the Nebraska attack. And we're betting that you wouldn't survive a repeat."

"Maybe your intelligence isn't as good as you think it is," Bella bluffed.

"Oh, I think it's pretty good." The Big Guy reached up and turned the camera to include the space to Aro's right. And sitting beside him was ...

"_Kebi_," Amun said, his voice like an open wound. He reached for the screen involuntarily, as if to touch her.

It all clicked into place now. "You're Aro's girlfriend, aren't you?" Bella said.

Kebi hesitated for a moment and then nodded. She was the one whom Edward had been sent to spy on when he was captured, drugged in front of her sister's empty house.

Aro leaned over and kissed her. She didn't resist him, but her eyes stayed fastened on the camera. "My sweet girl."

Amun let out a small groan and walked away from the table. Bella saw him pace. Saw his hands clench in his hair. Saw him double over as though he'd been stabbed in the gut and fall to his knees.

"You _cunt_," Jane said from behind Edward, where she'd crept up to peek around the edge of his wing at the images on the screen. For once, Bella did not chastise her for her language.

"You lied about your family in Egypt," Bella said to Kebi, stupidly. "You lied about _everything_. Who was Sam, then?"

"Sam was just supposed to inflame Jenks's protective instincts," Aro said. "Jenks has a reputation for rescuing abused women. We hoped you would take Kebi with you. We didn't expect you to kill Sam, but we're not all that sorry you did. The man was becoming a liability anyway."

"And the men who attacked Aunt Esme? Were you watching her house or did Kebi tell you where we went?

"Kebi," Aro confirmed. The Big Guy gave him an irritated look as if he didn't want to spoil he illusion that the Theta Project's eyes were everywhere. "She called us to give us periodic updates until she had the opportunity to slip away."

Bella glanced over at Amun, still on his knees on the packed earth of the campground's common area. He had not moved.

"Bella, give it up," the Big Guy coaxed. "This is killing you. You don't have to die before you're thirty. Call it off. Find yourself that little island that you want to live on with your boyfriend."

Alice gave an indignant huff, offended that Kebi had apparently reported on all the conversations she had overheard.

"If I die before I'm thirty, at least I know I'm going to heaven. How about you, Aro?"

He looked startled at that question and then very uncomfortable. He glanced over at the Big Guy, whose face was impassive.

"I've told you my terms," she said. "I want you to know this: _I won't stop._ I won't stop until the Theta Project is nothing but ashes." She pointed at Kebi. "And _you_, bitch, have something special coming."

Kebi looked like she wanted to protest but Aro moved the camera away from her.

"You were once a soldier, Aro," Bella said. "Maybe you once knew what it was like to be willing to die for a cause you believed in. That would have been back during the Cold War. Back then, we were enemies of the U.S.S.R and we were told that we were fighting the good fight, that the Russians wanted to take away our freedom of speech, our freedom of worship, our economic system ... everything we held dear. That's what we're always told about our nation's enemies, I suppose. But there were thousands of brave men and women in our armed forces who believed they might have to lay down their lives to protect those freedoms. You were among them. I don't know if you believed in the cause of protecting freedom back then, but I do know that today, you're on the _wrong_ side. You're on the side that steals, and lies and kills and takes away freedom. You are the enemy. And I am willing to die to protect freedom."

"Very pretty little speech, Miss Swan," the Big Guy spat. "But you're dealing with things you don't understand. National security - "

"Oh, fuck me, not this shit again," Jenks groaned. "You fuckers use that excuse way too much and it's losing its efficacy."

"Disbelieve it if you will, but I assure you that if we just released our test subjects, they would be taken to other countries' programs. Don't you get it? It's not just us. We have to have this program because _other_ countries have these programs."

_"We cannot have a Doomsday gap_," Bella thought. "Then it looks like I have a lifetime worth of work ahead of me because I swear that I will end this evil wherever it's found. And _you can't_ _stop me._ That's why you're trying to parlay now, to save your skins. Because you _know_ you can't stop me."

Bella picked up the iPad and stared into its tiny camera hole. "You'd better make your peace with whatever god you have because_ I am coming for you_." And with that, she smashed the iPad into tiny fragments.

There was utter silence at the campground, except for the song of the crickets, the splash of water in the nearby brook. Amun still had not moved from his position on his knees, his arms clamped around his abdomen as if he were trying to keep himself from falling into pieces.

"Damn, Bella, didja have to break it?" Forks said. "I would have liked to check my e-mail."


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight

..

"Amun?" Bella walked slowly over to the man who still knelt in the dust, his head bowed, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. When they'd gone inside for the evening, he hadn't even responded to their entreaties.

There had been a debate over whether to move the RV to another location, which seemed wise considering the Theta Project knew exactly where they were. But, as Jenks pointed out, if they were going to attack, they would have done so when they had the element of surprise. Secondly, no one could get Amun to move or speak and no one was brave enough to actually try to pick him up and move him into the RV. They couldn't leave him behind. None of them would even consider the idea, not when he was obviously in such overwhelming agony.

So, they settled down for the night, albeit nervously. Collin offered stand guard for the night, since, as he said, he wouldn't be sleeping anyway. The dark circles under his eyes suggested he hadn't slept in days.

Bella carried a blanket with her when she went outside. She didn't know if Amun felt the cold like a human did, but it was chilly tonight. As she gently draped it around his shoulders, he turned his head to look at her, the first movement she had seen from him in hours. His black eyes had a strange, unsettling glitter.

"Ben has been searching the server data all night and he thinks he's found another facility." Bella sat down beside him on the ground and pulled her jacket a little more closely around her. She drew her hands into the sleeves.

Amun did not reply. He simply gazed at her. She had to look away, disturbed by that strange light in his eyes.

"He thinks it's the only facility left. He told me each one was assigned a code and there's only one code left. Or something like that. I don't really get his computer talk. They'll likely be there, because it's the safest place for them and they'll probably have every Theta Project soldier they've got left guarding it."

He turned back to gaze into the the distance.

"I'm gonna destroy that bitch," Bella muttered.

"No" Amun said, and she jumped a little at the sound of his voice. It was the sound of the icy wind blowing over the Siberian steppes, bitterly cold and hollow. "She is _mine._"

He shrugged out of the blanket Bella had given him and stood. "Where is this facility?"

"Ben doesn't know yet. He's still working on it."

"The information is layered within the code," Amun said. He stepped in her direction and Bella was suddenly afraid of him, afraid in a way she had never been. There was something _wrong_ with him, and though her mind couldn't identify it, her instinct - her visceral reaction to it - was to flee. Bella's knees trembled. She couldn't even throw up a shield.

But all he did was stride past her toward the RV. She followed after she picked up the blanket, a few paces behind and tried to calm her racing heart with deep, slow breaths. She gave Collin a little wave as she walked around to the other side of the RV. He was seated on the roof, a rifle across his lap, keeping watch as promised.

It was dark and quiet inside the RV, with almost everyone asleep. Most of the furniture in the RV converted to beds. Esme, Jane and Quil shared the sofa bed, a wall of pillows between the Quil and the ladies like a bundling board. The dining table, when flipped over and the benches flattened, became a queen-sized bed, upon which Forks and Phoenix snored. Lauren and Jenks were in the back bedroom (it was an agreement that the couples would get the bedroom and take turns using it.) Edward was asleep in one of the recliners. He hated to sleep on his back because it rumpled is feathers, but even at its flattest, the recliner's shape wouldn't allow him to sleep on his stomach. But the guys had taken the recliners the previous evening and Edward thought it was only fair that they should get the bed tonight. Upon his chest, Dave was curled up, a tiny ball of black, scruffy fur. His little paws twitched as he dreamt.

Alice and Jasper shared the other recliner. Alice was so tiny she could fit in the space left over on Jasper's side with some to spare. Her head was pillowed on his shoulder, and his arm was wrapped around her back, holding her even in his sleep.

Ben sat on the floor in the kitchen area, pecking at the keys of his laptop. A cool, white glow from the screen illuminated his features. He nearly dropped it when he saw Amun.

"H- hey," Ben stammered.

Amun wordlessly held out his hand. Ben gave him the laptop. Amun set it on the counter in front of him and frowned at the screen. In the soft light of the laptop, his eyes seemed even blacker, icy-cold pools of bottomless darkness. Bella's breath caught in her throat and she went over to sit on the arm of Edward's recliner. She put her hand on his shoulder and immediately felt better, as if a warm light had filled her, chasing away the shadows.

She should lie down with him and get some sleep, she thought, but she needed to know what Amun found.

"Are you sure they'd still be there?" Ben asked. "I mean, they gotta know we have this data and that we're going to know exactly where they are."

"Like a chess game," Amun murmured. "They're waiting for us to make our move. We've done well with small skirmishes. So they're going to face us with an army. They will try to overwhelm us with numbers, with everything they have."

A showdown. One final battle between good and evil.

"The end," Bella said softly. "One way or the other."

Amun's black eyes met hers and she felt a chill run down her spine. "Yes. One way or the other." He looked back at the computer screen. "Go and sleep, Bella. You will need your rest."

He was right, but there was no way she was going to be able to fall asleep naturally so she picked up Collin's tool kit and went out to climb the ladder to the top.

He looked almost Zen, sitting there. His legs were folded in front of him, the rifle braced across his lap, and he stared out at the horizon with a pensive look on his face. "What is it, Bella?" he asked. He didn't look in her direction.

Bella never again wanted to try climbing a ladder with only one hand, a hand that had a very uncertain grip on the rungs. She set the tool kit down beside him. "I need something to make me sleep."

He fished around inside until he found a bottle of caplets and shook two into his hand. "Here."

Bella dry-swallowed them. "How long before they kick in?"

He shrugged. "Half an hour or so, maybe."

"Are you all right, Collin?"

"No, Bella, I'm not," he said. "I'm doing as you advised, taking a good, hard look at myself and I'm not really enjoying what I see."

"Are there any parts you _do_ like?"

He gave her a skeptical glance. "Are you kidding me?"

"How about the fact that you're sufficiently introspective to do the looking? That's something that's a good thing, right?"

"Yeah, Bella, I love making myself miserable." His voice was bitter and she wanted to hug him but was pretty sure he would reject it. "I think I liked it better when I was an insensitive asshole. Now, if you don't mind, I have a lot more self-loathing to get through before the end of the night and there are only about six hours until dawn."

She flinched and stood to go.

"Wait, Bella, I'm sorry. Shit ... I don't mean - " He rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm sorry," he said, in a softer tone. "I know you're just trying to help me."

"Okay." Bella nodded. "Apology accepted. I'm sorry this is so hard for you, Collin, but I swear it will be worth it in the end."

"If we live."

Bella looked down. "Yeah. That." She turned and climbed down the ladder.

Back inside, Amun was still poring over the laptop. Ben had fallen asleep sitting on the floor against the cabinet. Bella put the blanket she'd given to Amun over him.

She crawled into the recliner with Edward and curled up against his side. He gave an inarticulate mumble and put his arms around her as he burrowed his face into her hair. She was surprised at how comfortable she was. When she next opened her eyes, it was morning, and she had no recollection of the sleep that preceded it. _Must have been some powerful stuff he gave me_, Bella thought.

She turned her face to look up at Edward and found him already awake, playing with a strand of her hair. It was back to her original color (or as close as the dye makers could get), and had grown back to brush the tops of her shoulders.

He smiled when he saw her looking at him. "How long have you been awake?" Bella asked.

"An hour or so, maybe."

"Why didn't you get up?"

"I didn't want to disturb you," he said. "You're so cute when you're asleep, mumbling to yourself. You kept saying _'Buy more eggs.'_"

She shook her head. "I don't remember anything."

"You slept hard," he agreed. "But you needed it. Stand up."

She wiggled her way out of the recliner and he moved it back into a sitting position. He stood and extended his wings to fluff them, but RVs are not designed with an angels' wingspan in mind. He knocked over Ben's drink and nearly soaked the computer and bumped Alice in the face with his wing tip.

"Sorry, sorry," he said. He darted to the kitchen to get paper towels.

"I've got it," Lauren assured him. Ben held his laptop aloft while she wiped the table and gave Edward an indignant look. Alice spat out a bit of white fluff and Jasper's look was equally outraged.

"Sorry," he said again. "I'll go outside."

Bella followed him. He extended his wings to the widest and gave them a shake with a sigh of relief. Bella led him to the picnic table. "Sit down," she ordered. She sat on the top of the table behind him.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"You need a good preening," she replied.

"You should save your power. You don't know when Amun will find the information or whether the Theta Project will attack us here."

"If they do, you'll go into battle with neatly preened wings," Bella said stubbornly. She concentrated on her fingers and carefully smoothed each feather. He sighed with pleasure, and began to preen the outer feathers that he could reach. His wings gleamed brilliant white in the morning sun.

"You haven't even had your morning coffee yet," he pointed out.

"When we're done," she said. She hadn't brushed her teeth yet, either, something that she always did immediately upon rising, self-conscious about having morning breath. Edward never had morning breath. No, an angel's breath always smelled as delicious as the rest of them.

By the time they were finished, the morning sun had risen high in the sky. Bella waved at Collin as they headed inside. She could see by the expression on his face that he was upset or sad about something and she made a mental note to approach him later.

"I smell pancakes!" Edward said with glee. Bella left him to his culinary delight and went in to brush her teeth (with a toothbrush that Edward had altered for her to have a thick handle that she could grip and strap to slip over her wrist) and wash up. She noticed something strange, though: there were a few small spots on her face that were numb. She couldn't feel the rub of the washcloth on those areas. Strange.

She returned to take a seat at the table beside Edward. Everyone else, it seemed, had finished with breakfast and Bella felt guilty for making Lauren wait on them, but Lauren seemed untroubled by it. She hummed as she whipped up more pancake batter and poured it into the skillet. Bella saw a flash of silver on her hand and saw that Lauren was wearing Jenks's skull ring on her left ring finger, the back of it wrapped with thread, like a girl wearing her boyfriend's class ring.

Jane came up behind Bella and put her arms around Bella's shoulder. "Morning, mom," she said, and kissed Bella's cheek.

"Morning, sweetie."

Edward turned around in his seat to hug Jane. He sniffed and frowned at her. "You've been drinking coffee."

"Uh ... just a small cup," Jane said sheepishly.

"Go drink a glass of juice," Edward ordered, as if that was the antidote to coffee.

Jane poured herself a tall glass of orange juice and sat down in front of the TV. She flipped the channels until she found the _The McLaughlin Group _and settled back to watch.

"Our daughter is a nerd," Bella said to Edward, delighted.

Lauren smiled at Edward as she put a heaping plate in front of him, the pancakes topped with a pat of butter melting down the edges of the stack in rivulets. "And a bottle of syrup, all for you." Lauren plunked it down in front of him.

"Hey, that's the good shit," Forks complained. "You gave us some fuckin' knock-off brand and _he_ gets a whole bottle of Mrs. Buttersworth?"

"I was saving it -" Lauren started and then faltered. An inexpressibly sad light flickered through her eyes and she turned back to the stove.

She thought these might be Edward's last pancakes. The thought struck Bella like a punch to the solar plexus, and she would have dropped her fork if it wasn't strapped to her wrist. Edward put his arm around her shoulders. "These aren't my last pancakes," he declared firmly. "They aren't."

"I have found it," Amun said.

Everyone froze, even Dave, who was happily gnawing on a rubber bone Lauren had bought for him when she got the groceries. Edward had a fork-full of pancake half way to his mouth. Syrup dripped from it and everyone heard it plop onto his plate.

"Where?" Bella asked.

"Near Green Mountain. It seems fly-fishing wasn't the only reason Aro frequented this area."

Bella went over to look at the map Ben had drawn up and was startled. He had placed a pin at their location, and another at the site of the facility. "That close?"

"It's further than it looks, and it doesn't appear there are any roads to it."

"There will be a road," Amun said. "They have hidden it, I am sure, but they must have an access road to bring in supplies."

"We need a van," Jenks mused.

Forks and Phoenix gave each other a high-five. "We're on it!"

Amun turned to Bella. "Tonight?" he asked politely.

She nodded. "Tonight."

"We're going to need a _fuckload_ of guns," Jenks said. "Who do we know down here?"

Phoenix tapped a finger against his lips. "There's Renata."

Jenks shuddered. "Ugh. I hate dealing with that bitch. Who else?"

Forks scratched his head. "Well, what about the Reverend?"

"Webber?"

"Him."

Jenks considered and then nodded. "Give him a call. Don't dick around on the price, either. Just get the shit and get back here."

"Got it, Boss."

"And get some vests if he has any."

Forks and Phoenix ran out of the RV like kids escaping a classroom for recess.

"Jenks? Can I talk to you for a minute?" Bella asked.

"Sure."

Bella stood and led him outside. They walked to the opposite side of the campground and sat down on the picnic table. It was beautiful, warm summer's morning. The wind sighed through the pine trees around them and the birds sang sweetly. Bella closed her eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the scents of warm earth, pine needles and clean country air.

"What is it, Bella?"

"It's Jane," Bella said. "And Dave, too. There's a chance - Well, let's be honest ... There's a _strong possibility_ I won't be coming back from this. It's the elephant in the room that everyone is pretending isn't there, but there are some things that need to be said. If Edward and I don't come back from this, I want you and Lauren to take Jane and Dave. Will you do that?"

Jenks nodded. "But I don't understand why you wouldn't choose your brother first."

"Because I need to know she's with someone who could protect her if we don't manage to destroy the Theta Project. I love Jasper and he'd make a great dad for Jane, but he's not a fighter and neither is Alice."

"They're gonna have to be tonight," Jenks said. "Laurie, too. They're all coming with us."

Bella's brow creased. "Why?"

"We need every gun we can get."

"Esme ..."

"She's on board, too. I talked to everyone this morning while you and Edward were outside. No one wants to sit this one out. And I know you don't want to, and I'm not gonna tell you how to take care of your own fuckin' kid, but I think you should let Jane come, too. Let her fight for the people she loves."

They were silent for a long moment as Bella digested this. "I saw your ring on Lauren's hand," she said.

"Yeah. I promised her once this is over I'd get her a real engagement ring, but she said she just wants my ring re-sized for her. Hard to believe she wants to wear that fuckin' ugly thing." He picked at the loose paint on the table. "I wish that I'd really be able to marry her after this. I wish there _was_ an 'after this'."

"You never know," Bella said. "Maybe we'll get another miracle."

"Yeah. Somehow I don't really think God's gonna go out of his fuckin' way to save an asshole like me, but thanks for the thought. But I hope you end up on that tropical island of yours where Edward won't have to remember to wear pants."

"And I want you and Lauren to get married and have lots of kids," Bella replied.

He shuddered. "Me? With kids? Janey I could probably handle 'cause she's almost completely grown, but an impressionable little baby? Perish the fuckin' thought."

"I think you'd do better than you think you would. Though, you'd have to stop swearing so fuckin' much."

"See? Insurmountable hurdle." Jenks stood and brushed off the back of his jeans. "You don't have to worry about Jane or Dave, Bella. All of us have an agreement on that. It's me and Lauren, then Alice and Jasper, then Esme ... All the way down to Phoenix and Forks, though they're probably the only people who'd make worse parents than I would. Jane would end up raising _them_."

Bella slid off the picnic table and hugged him. "Thanks, Jenks."

"You go take a nap," he ordered. "You need to re-charge your batteries after using some of your juice on smoothing out Edward's wings."

She kissed his cheek and walked toward the RV, but she didn't go inside. She climbed the ladder to the top where Collin was still sitting.

"You didn't get any breakfast," she noted.

He shook his head. "Not hungry."

She wasn't going to pressure him. He knew he should eat to build up his strength for the coming battle and didn't need her to remind him. Maybe he'd eat later. She sat beside him and waited.

It wasn't long before he spoke. "I watched you this morning, picking at his wings."

"Preening," Bella corrected.

Collin lit a cigarette and blew out a long plume of smoke. "I watched you and it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. It was ... sweet. _Tender_, you know. I almost felt bad for watching, like I was spying on you in a really intimate moment. The way you were taking care of him, and the way he takes care of you ... I want that. That's what I want."

"And you could have it some day, if you can open your heart. Intimacy isn't only one way, Collin. Both people have to be willing to open themselves to have to true communion of souls."

"That's easy for you," Collin said, but there was no heat in his words. "Edward is your angel. He knows everything about you. And you never have to worry about him cheating on you, or leaving you, or being cruel to you."

"It still wasn't easy," Bella insisted. "I was closed off, Collin. I had spent my whole life trying to hide from other people. Trying to hide my talent, trying to hide my sensitivity, trying to hide how lonely I felt even in a crowded room. I doubted Edward's love for me. I wondered if his feelings were sincere, or if they were something he _had_ to feel because of what he is. And I didn't think I was worthy of his love, to tell you the truth. Or anyone's love, for that matter."

Colin tilted his head and looked at her curiously. "Why would _you_ feel that way?"

"Because I had a low self-esteem. Because I felt guilty for things I had done."

He snorted. "What could you have done that was so awful? Egged a couple of cars after the Homecoming dance?"

"I killed someone while I was in high school," Bella said.

Collin blinked. "Fuck ... I was not expecting you to say something like that. Really?"

"Yeah, really. He was trying to ... Well, he was trying to hurt me, so I killed him."

"Self-defense. You shouldn't feel bad about that."

"Well, the kids in my high school thought differently.," Bella said crisply. "Listen, as enjoyable as this trip down Memory Lane has been - "

"Yeah." Collin gazed off into the distance again, his expression pensive. "Go on. You've got shit to do."

Considering today might be her last day alive, that was an understatement.

She climbed down the ladder but her hands slipped and she fell the last few rungs. A pair of strong arms caught her. Edward. He was always there to catch her if she fell.

"Let's go take that nap," he suggested and carried her inside the RV to the back bedroom. They lay down together on the bed and Edward took her hand in his own, twining their fingers. He leaned up on one elbow.

"We'll be together, right?"

"No matter what," he promised.

She felt tears sting her eyes. "I don't want this to be the end."

He kissed her. "I know."

"Make love to me," she whispered. "One last time."

It was slow, and sweet and gentle as they savored every touch, every kiss, every sensation. Tears streamed from Bella's eyes, and Edward wept, too, his tears falling to mingle with hers. When he came, he arched over her, his wings spread as far as this little room would allow, blotting out the light from the little window.

"Will it be different?" she asked him.

He sat up, his back braced against the wall. Bella lay on his chest and he had wrapped his wings around her, hiding her in that warm, soft, white world that she loved so much, a world where only they existed, a timeless place where nothing could touch her.

"Yes," he said. "It will be different."

"I know you never wanted to talk about it."

"I still don't," he admitted. "But I want you to know that there's nothing to fear. There will be nothing but joy, and we'll be together, always."

She fell asleep like that, wrapped safe and warm in his arms, under the shelter of his wings and she dreamt of a place that was far too beautiful to be real, a place that contained all of her dreams and hopes and every wish she had ever made. And Edward was at her side, just as he had promised. And really, that was all she needed for it to be perfect.


	39. Chapter 39

Chapter Thirty-Nine

..

"Did I ever tell you I hate hiking?" Forks asked.

"Only once or twice ... per minute," Phoenix retorted. "Man the fuck up, Nancy."

Edward stopped to lift Bella over a fallen log.

"I think these vests might have been a bad idea," Forks said. "They're slowing us down."

Everyone but Amun wore a bullet-proof vest, over or under their clothes according to preference. On the back of his, Quil had drawn a whimsical cartoon of all of them dressed as knights of yore, each wearing a fedora and sunglasses with the title above: "WE'RE ON A MISSION FROM GOD."

"I was told there would be a road," Forks continued in his litany of complaints.

"So? Amun was wrong about how they get their fuckin' groceries delivered. It must be by helicopter or something. We drove all around the goddam mountain looking for a way in. You were there, remember? We couldn't find a road."

Alice caught up to Amun. "May I speak with you for a moment?" she asked.

He simply gazed down at her.

Alice became more visibly nervous by the moment. "I need to tell you ... I'm so sorry, Amun. I saw you and ... the two of you happy together. Not this."

Amun's voice was gentle, kind. "I know, Alice. It is my fault, not yours. I wish I could prevent blocking your talent. And yours, too, Jasper."

Jasper looked startled. He turned to look back at Bella, but Amun spoke before he could ask her the question. "She did not tell me. I can feel it."

Alice turned to Jasper with a confused look on her face. "Jasper? What is he talking about?"

He hadn't told her? Bella stared at her brother, just as confused as Alice. Why would he keep it secret? If anyone could understand his talent, it would be Alice. Alice's face tightened and Jasper looked like a deer blinded by headlights.

"Later, you guys," Bella advised.

Alice nodded and Jasper agreed as well, probably feeling lucky to escape her anger, however temporarily. Jasper was one of the most easy-going people Bella had ever met, but it had its downside in that he avoided conflict wherever possible, even if it was important.

Forks stubbed his toe and howled. He hopped around on one foot and tossed down his bag of gear. "Ow! Break time, goddamit!" He hopped back to the log Edward had lifted Bella over and sat down to pull off his shoe.

"Jesus Christ!" Jenks barked, sweeping the bag off the ground. "This ain't a fuckin' sack of potatoes you dumbass! There are grenades in there!"

"Grenades? We have grenades?" Bella asked.

"And enough plastique to knock Colorado's nice, square border out of alignment," Collin said from the back of the line. "It's relatively inert until it has a fuse, but Jenks is right, Forks. Don't toss that shit around."

"Does no one care that I jabbed my goddam _toe_?"

"Show of hands?" Jenks prompted. When no one raised theirs, Jenks arched a brow at him.

"You fuckers," Forks said. He pulled his shoe back on and stood. He limped dramatically until he realized that no one was going to give him the sympathy he sought.

"How close are we, Jenks?" Bella asked.

Jenks took out his phone. He had downloaded a GPS app this afternoon. Between the fact that they didn't have exact coordinates and the fact that the GPS itself wasn't terribly precise. "Half a mile, maybe."

Ben had altered one of his programs which searched for repetition in computer code and used it to search the Google Earth photos of Green Mountain for areas where the pattern of trees was repeated, likely concealing the area where the facility was located. They found a place, on the southeast side of the mountain, that seemed promising, and that's where they were headed, a very long trek from the nearest road, up rough terrain.

It gave the Theta Project an edge, Bella thought. They were likely to arrive at the facility already exhausted from the hike, while the Thetas were comfortably entrenched in familiar terrain.

"Keep your eyes peeled, people," Jenks said. "We're not far now."

"Praise Jesus," Forks said, with great sincerity.

"Try to keep quiet," Jenks advised. "Forks, I know this will present you with a fuckin' incredible challenge, but give it your best."

"Watch for wires and shit, too," Phoenix advised. "They could have booby traps set up."

Bella had no idea how she was supposed to watch for wires in the dark. Just walking without tripping over the sticks, rocks and other assorted debris that littered the forest floor was difficult enough. Wordlessly, Edward scooped her up into his arms to carry her. His eyes were much sharper.

The only sounds now were their feet crunching on the leaves. Bella almost dozed off, lulled by the gentle rocking of Edward's steps and the throb of his heart under her ear.

"I see a light," Quil said. "Up there. Uh... ten o'clock."

Jenks waved his hand and all of his crew, who knew the hand-signals, crouched down. The rest of them copied the motion. Jenks unzipped his bag and began to distribute handguns. The Reverend had really come through for them, offering the best of his stock at good prices.

Edward didn't take any guns for himself, but passed two of them to Bella. She tried to hold one to check to see if it was loaded and it fell from her hand. Edward caught it before it could hit the forest floor and gave it back to her. She tried to wrap her fingers around the butt ad trigger guard and dropped it again.

"Okay, _that's_ a fuckin' problem," Jenks noted. "Collin, give her a rifle and see if it's any easier for her to hold."

It clattered out of her hands twice. Edward handed it back to Collin silently.

"I've got some duct tape," Ben announced. "How 'bout we use that to make some kind of strap, like on that fork Edward made for her?"

Jenks shook his head. "Good idea, but it looks like she doesn't have the dexterity to hold onto it and pull the trigger at the same time."

"I'm sorry," Bella said. She felt like she was going to cry.

"I will shoot for her," Edward declared.

Jenks clapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks, buddy, but you can't hit the broad side of a barn. Just use that sword of yours and we'll be fine."

Slowly, silently, they moved toward the light. Out of the darkness, a building began to take shape, tucked back against a low cliff. A double chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire surrounded it. As they watched, a trio of guard dogs circled the perimeter.

"Edward, can you talk to them, like you can talk to Dave?" Jenks asked. At Edward's nod, he continued, "Bella, as soon as he has the dogs taken care of, you knock that goddam fence out of the way, okay?"

Bella nodded. Her heart thudded in her chest.

Edward jumped and thrashed his wings to lift him off the ground, then glided over to the fence. He surprised the dogs with his sudden, silent appearance, catching them by surprise before they could bark.

_Hello, _he said to them.

_He can talk!_ the alpha exclaimed to the two who stood behind him. _A human who can talk!_

_What does it want_? the beta asked nervously. _I think we should bark at it and make it go away_.

_My pack wishes to pass through your territory into the den_, Edward told them_. __Do you have pack members inside?_

_No, only humans_, the alpha said. _They are not ours. _He tilted his head back and sniffed the air. _You smell funny._

_I am not a human,_ Edward admitted. _But my pack are. Will you allow us to pass?_

The alpha considered. _Will you give us food_? _The humans never give us enough and we are hungry._

_We have none with us now, but I will bring you some when we return_, Edward promised.

_You may pass through our territory. We will not bite.  
><em>

_Thank you._

Edward turned to the team. "They'll let us through."

"Bella?"

"I'm on it." She concentrated on the fence and tore it free from the posts, creating a large gap, and flung the tangle of metal to the side. The dogs trotted out, sniffing the new ground. One of them snuffled at Quil and he gave it a timid pat.

Inside an alarm began to bray. "Take cover," Jenks advised and they all ducked behind trees. Edward pulled Bella against his chest and wrapped his wings tightly around her. "Edward, I can't see! I need to shield - "

"Not yet," Edward said.

She heard staccato bursts of gunfire. "One o'clock," Jenks called.

"Got it!" Phoenix replied. He fired off three rapid rifle shots and Bella heard a distant cry of pain.

"Oh, shit, here comes the cavalry!"

"Quil, hit 'em fast before they spread out."

An orange glow filtered through Edward's wings and Bella heard a rushing sound. Screams that were abruptly cut off. A hot, metallic smell in the air.

A distant _thwoomp_ and Jenks shouted _"Shield!_" Bella threw a protective dome around their area and then felt something slam into her mind with incredible force. There was an explosion which burned along the edges of her mind, hot, white and searing. Edward groaned and squeezed her tighter.

She heard Amun's voice: "I will take down the missile launcher." then the rapid crunching of leaves, followed by a cascade of gunfire.

"Shit, that guy is fast," Collin said, but his voice sounded foggy and distant.

"Drop it," Jenks directed.

"I should try to help," Bella whispered to Edward, who still had his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"Save your strength," he said. "Stick with the plan."

She was supposed to let the guys take on as much as they could by themselves, to take out as much of the opposition with conventional weapons as they could.

"I'm out!" Alice called.

Bella pulled herself from Edward's arms and dove for one of the bags of ammo. She grabbed a banana clip and tossed it to Alice, who ejected the empty and snapped in the fresh clip like a pro. Edward crouched down behind Bella and wrapped her in his wings again, but this time he left a gap so she was able to peek over the top. Forks, who had been quietly given the job of protecting Esme, stood beside her as she fired her rifle. She squeezed her eyes shut and didn't open them until her clip was empty. Fork shook his head in exasperation, but changed the clip for her and handed the gun back.

A flash of flame caught her eye and Bella turned her head to see Amun across the field, wielding his flaming swords, one in each hand, hacking and slashing his way through the enemy lines. Someone shot him and a large red splotch appeared on his light blue silk shirt. Amun looked down at it and then his eyes narrowed.

"Oh, fuck, they're in for it now," Ben said. "He really liked that shirt."

Amun moved so fast that he was nothing but a black blur surrounded by flame. He tore through them like a scythe through wheat. Bodies and pieces littered the ground behind him.

An eerie silence fell. Even the alarm ceased to blare. They all waited.

"What the fuck?" Quil said. "That's _it_?"

"No fuckin' way," Jenks said with a shake of his head. "They're waiting for us to break cover."

"So, what do we do?"

"We break cover," Jenks said. "Draw them out the way they're hoping to draw us out. Quil, you and Collin go up the treeline over there." Jenks pointed to their right. "Try to flank the sons a' bitches. Bella, Edward and I are going to go straight up the middle. As soon as we hit the center of the field, the rest of you follow. Got it?"

He checked the load of one of his pistols and stuck it in the back of his belt. "You two ready?"

Bella took Edward's hand and nodded.

"Stay behind Edward, Bella. Don't throw up a shield unless we have to, okay? Save your juice. We're gonna go really fuckin' fast so be prepared to run."

Jenks crouched at the treeline, his fingertips braced on the leaf-strewn ground like a runner at a track meet. "Count to five and then go!" he hissed and charged past the fence. Hidden soldiers opened fire, dozens of them, from the sound of it, and they seemed to be spread out all over so that she couldn't get a fix on their position. She saw a flash of fire as Amun launched into action, charging toward the side of the building. Jenks scrambled back and was knocked onto his ass when a bullet took out a chunk of his vest on his stomach.

"Jenks!" Lauren screamed. She dropped her rifle and ran over to him.

"Fuck me, that was close," he blurted and shoved a hand below the vest as if to make sure his guts were really intact. Lauren's hand followed his and she sagged with relief that he was unharmed. Jenks gave her a quick, hard kiss.

"Um ... okay, change of plans. Edward, do you know how to use a grenade?"

"I've seen them used in the movies my Bella has watched," Edward replied.

Jenks opened the bag and pulled one out. "Look. Squeeze this handle down, then pull out the pin and throw. What I want you to do is take off and fly over head. I'll run out again and wherever you see muzzle flashes, drop one of these fuckers on their heads."

Edward shook his head. "I don't want to leave my Bella."

"We're gonna be sitting here all night with people shooting at your Bella if you don't," Jenks said.

"I'll be right here," Bella promised. "I'll be fine."

"She'll be safer if you take out those soldiers," Alice iadded.

"Go on," Forks added. "I promise to protect her."

Edward looked torn. "Go," Bella coaxed.

He put his hand out for the bag and Jenks gave it to him. Edward kissed Bella, hard. "Be safe," he whispered.

"I will."

His wings beat at the air and she watched him rise and then bank into a turn over the tree tops. Jenks began to gather up the white, waxy blocks of plastic explosive he had taken from the grenade bag and put it into his own backpack. He waited until Edward was over the enemy lines and then took a deep breath and dashed back out into the clearing.

A storm of gunfire erupted. Jenks darted right and then left. An explosion across the field lit up the night with an orange fireball. Bella and Jenks could see Edward even in the darkness, for his pearlescent wings seemed to capture a golden glow in the light from the fires below.

"Holy shit! Those ain't ordinary grenades," Phoenix marveled. "What the hell?"

"New shit," Jenks agreed. "Army is testing 'em. Incendiaries. Excuse me for a moment." He ran back out onto the field, darting back and forth along the treeline, squeezing off shots whenever he saw a muzzle flash.

Two more explosions lit up the night.

The soldiers seemed to realize that the assault was coming from above and a few of them fired wildly into the sky at the invisible angel of death. Bella saw a bullet punch through Edward's left wing, sending up a puff of shredded feathers. He faltered. Bella screamed as though she were the one who'd been hit and Jenks darted back into the treeline just in time to grab her before she ran out onto the field.

"Bella, stop! What the fuck are you doing? It's not like you can fly up and help him."

"Edward!" she cried. "Let me go!"

The second shot caught him in the chest and Edward tumbled bonelessly to the earth. Someone yelled, "What the fuck _is_ _that_?"

They had Edward.

Bella's mind went blank, her only thought to get to Edward. She slammed Jenks with her power and he flew back to land with a thud on the forest floor. She heard Lauren scream his name again Bella took off running as fast she could. Bullets plowed into the ground around her, sending up chips of soil but she barely noticed them. Her eyes were fixed to her angel, lying on the ground, one of his wings bent back at an unnatural angle. Three soldiers stood around him, their rifles braced against their shoulders, pointed at his motionless chest. She lashed at them with her fury and they simply exploded as if they'd been hit with a thousand tiny blades, even their guns shredded to fragments.

Amun appeared beside her, his flaming swords held out as he spun in a circle, surveying the area for enemies. Bella barely noticed him

"Edward!" Bella threw herself down on her knees beside him. She cupped his face in her hands. "Edward, please! Oh God ... Esme! I've got to get you to Esme."

Suddenly he arched, sucking in a breath on a huge gasp. His eyes flicked around wildly until they found her. He sagged back down to the ground and coughed. A trickle of blood ran from the side of his mouth.

"Edward," she whispered. She bent down and kissed him.

He choked out her name and coughed again.

"Shh, don't try to talk." She brushed his unruly red-brown hair from his forehead. "I don't have wings I can wrap you in, but I have us both inside my shield. That will be my wings to hold you. Invisible but impermeable."

His mouth worked as if he were tying to form words. Bella took his hand in hers. "Please, Edward, give me half of your pain."

He shook his head.

"I can't bear to see you like this," she said. "Please, let me help you as you've always helped me."

"Bella, we have to move," Amun interrupted. "It's not safe here."

When she didn't answer, Amun grew insistent. "Bella, we must get him to a safer location. Will you let me touch him?"

She hesitated for a moment but nodded. Amun swung his swords behind his back and slid them into the sheathes that crossed under his shoulders. He gently picked up Edward and carried him into the treeline on the right side of the building. Quil and Collin emerged from the shadows as Amun laid Edward down on the earth. His broken wing jabbed into the ground and he let out a moan that made Bella lash out at Amun. His head was knocked to the side with the force of the blow and when he looked back at Bella, his mouth and nose were bloody.

"I'm sorry," she said, aghast.

Amun nodded. "I understand. Bella, he cannot heal while the bullet is still in him."

"What do you mean?" Bella asked warily.

"I mean that you are going to walk over there with Quil and you will not come back until I call for you."

Quil put his hands on her shoulders and Bella's anger flared.

"Bella, you would not hurt Quil, would you?" Amun's voice was soothing, gentle, soft. Bella's anger died as quickly as it had come and she was lulled into calmness. "Of course you wouldn't. You'd never hurt Quil. Go on ... Go with Quil. And stay there, no matter what you hear." Amun reached into his back pocket and removed a switchblade which flicked open when he hit the small button with his thumb.

"Quil?" Bella said. He and Collin seized her arms and more-or-less dragged her back into the woods, down into a small gulley where she couldn't see what was happening.

Gunfire erupted again and Bella jerked her head toward the sound. _Jenks!_

Torn between an injured Edward and her friends, she heard Edward as though he spoke in her mind: _Go to them._

"Come on!" she tugged at Collin's arm and they ran through the woods, roughly following the line of the perimeter fence back to where Bella had broken through. While they were trying to flank the soldiers, the soldiers apparently had the same idea. They were behind Jenks's group, trying to drive them toward the clearing.

Quil flicked his wrist and a fireball appeared in his hand. He threw it like a baseball toward a fallen log where he could see the muzzles flash when they fired.

Bella heard screams. A man jumped up to run, his arms and back wreathed in flames. Collin didn't even pause to aim. He fired his pistol while running and the man collapsed, silent and still.

"Oh, thank God," Jenks said. "Bella, where's Edward?"

"With Amun, who's playing 'doctor'," Quil answered. "Get the fuck down, Jenks!"

Esme and Alice were huddled together behind a stump. Jasper crouched over them, staying as low to the ground as possible. He fired off into the trees. Bella heard a grunt and a body fell to the ground. She looked at her brother in surprise, but he was intent on protecting the women and did not notice.

"This is fucking ridiculous!" Jenks muttered. "We haven't even got inside yet."

"Shield!" Bella called. She felt the hot stings as bullets struck it. She closed her eyes and envisioned a blade emitting from it, just a couple of feet off the ground, spreading outward like a ripple in a pond.

In her imagination, it had only hit soldiers. In reality, it took down the trees. And they didn't fall in a nice, orderly fashion. They came crashing down in all directions, smashing into, and breaking, many of the ones left standing.

"Oh, fuck! Everybody out of the pool!" Jenks shouted. He grabbed Bella by the back of her bullet proof vest and dragged her out into the field. She watched as Collin walked backward, his two guns braced outward at chest level, firing at the soldiers who ran when the trees ceased to be cover and became weapons.

"Got 'em," he called cheerfully.

There was no fire when they entered the open field, though Bella kept their shield up, just in case.

Jenks looked around at the forest, now a jumble of stumps and logs. "Jesus, Bella, warn a guy next time, will ya?"

"I didn't mean to," she said.

Jenks took a tissue out of his pocket and dabbed Bella's upper lip. She hadn't noticed she was bleeding. She hadn't noticed it because most of her face was numb.

"Let's get you back to your angel," Jenks said gently.

"Bella, your eye - " Alice said, but cut off when Jenks glared at her.

"What about my eye?" Bella asked. None of them would answer her. "What about it? Tell me!"

"Your eye is drooping," Collin told her. "Both upper and lower lids. Can you see okay?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Smile at me," Collin commanded.

Bella had never felt less like smiling in her life, but she gave him her picture-taking smile.

"Fuck," Jenks said.

"The left side of your face is paralyzed, Bella." Collin's voice was calm. "Esme, can you -"

"No," Bella said. Speaking was difficult and her voice sounded garbled. "Save it for in case someone gets injured."

They headed through the woods toward the place they had left Amun and Edward. Bella stumbled more than usual. Her left leg seemed like it was tied to the ground and she had difficulty lifting it over even the smallest obstacle. Jenks watched her silently for a few minutes, then picked her up to carry her. She tried to object but he said, "You're getting tired, Bella. Let me help you, okay?"

"Okay," Bella said. She didn't argue because she was scared. Her body seemed to be breaking down around her. _Please, God_, she prayed. _Please, just let me fin__ish this. Afterwards, I don't care, but please, just let me finish it._


	40. Chapter 40

Chapter Forty

..

Jane slowly swam up out of sleep. Her eyelids seemed like magnets that she had difficulty prying apart. She pushed herself upright and groaned. Her head felt like it had been stuffed with wool and she had trouble piecing together a cohesive thought. She'd dreamt of her imaginary childhood friend, Rose, again and Rose had told her not to worry, that everything would be all right. Jane wished that she could believe it.

Where _was_ everyone? The RV was dark and empty. By now, Jane was so used to having her large, noisy "family" always around her that finding herself alone was a bit alarming. Jane heaved herself to her feet and wobbled to the back bedroom and found it vacant, except for Dave, who was curled up in the center. He thumped his little tail on the blanket when he saw her.

"What the fuck?" Jane blurted. "Hello, _Home Alone_, here."

She peeked out through one of the RV's windows and saw no one around the fire pit. No one on the picnic tables.

Where had they gone? The last thing she remembered was ... She shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. She remembered her dad giving her a glass of orange juice, asking her to drink it up so he could throw out the carton, and she had obediently guzzled it, though she thought it might have been going bad or something because it had a bitter tang to it.

And then nothing.

"He drugged me," Jane told Dave in tones of wonder. "I can't believe it, but my own dad _drugged_ me."

She walked back toward the living area and spotted a folded sheet of paper on the counter. "JANE" was written on the top. For a moment, Jane was tempted to wad it up and flush it in a fit of pique. But she opened it. It was Edward's handwriting, loopy and unsteady from lack of practice.

_Jane,_

_You're very angry at me right now and I don't blame you. But try to remember that this was done from love. Your mother and I can't stand the idea of you being harmed and our victory is uncertain at best._

_We may not come back from this, Jane, and if we don't, I want you to remember that we loved you. You are so precious to us, not because of your Gift, but because of who you are. You're smart, and resourceful and a brave defender of those you love.  
><em>

_ We both love you too much to risk you_._ I know it's unfair to you to deny your right to fight for those you love, but Bella and I need to know you're going to finish growing up and have the amazing life that we know is in store for you. God knows, we want more than anything to be there to see it, because we know you're going to make us so proud -_

Jane dropped the letter and covered her face with her hands. The words were too blurred by her tears to read on.

Dave whined and laid a paw on her arm. She rubbed his ears absently and used her sleeve to wipe her eyes.

"Goddam right it's unfair," she muttered. She spotted Ben's laptop laying on the table and a surge of determination made her set her jaw. "Fuck this."

She turned it on and entered his password. She had overheard him joking with Jenks about it and she had no idea what it meant because the word wasn't in her dictionary, though from the context, she was pretty sure it was a sex-thing and a kind of gross one at that. She had to give it a couple of tries before she got the spelling right, but then she was in.

They had been talking about finding an access road. Jane remembered that much. And they had pinpointed a spot where they thought the facility might be located. Ben had looked for repetition in the pattern of the trees, but he hadn't looked for repetitions in the code itself and then compared it to the server data, which was kind of dumb because the alterations to the map and photos probably originated on the Theta Project server. It seemed like the obvious thing to do to Jane, but she had learned that adults sometimes weren't all that smart.

Within fifteen minutes, she had her answer. There _was_ an access road, but it originated on the opposite side of the mountain, winding its way through canyons, and in some areas through tunnels cut into the mountain itself, to pop out right behind the spot where facility was located.

She went back into the back bedroom and reached under the bed. Dave had a crate under there, a solid, plastic thing. Jane stuffed two bed pillows into the sides of it and then put Dave inside, though he gave unhappy grunt. He did not like his crate. She perched the crate on one of the seats and used the seat belt to fasten it down securely.

"You remember last time I drove," she said to him as she used duct tape to fasten a stack of paperback books to the bottom of each shoe. "You were flying all over the place. You could get hurt." She refused to compare locking Dave up in his crate for his own good to the way she'd been effectively "crated" for her own good.

The keys were in the ignition. Jane pushed the seat as far forward as it would go and started the RV. She'd have to take the curves slow until she learned how it handled, but she was now on her way.

To save the day or join the people she loved in defeat. Whatever fate was theirs, she wanted it to be hers as well.

* * *

><p>Amun had laid a straight tree branch along Edward's broken wing and used strips of his blue silk shirt to bind it into a splint. His bare chest had streaks of Edward's blood on it like macabre war paint.<p>

Edward sat on the ground beside him, his back propped against a tree. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood, his face gray with pain, though his eyes lit up and he smiled when Jenks deposited Bella on the ground beside him. She threw her arms around him, careful of his broken wing.

"Oh, Edward, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Bella. Amun got the bullet out and I'll heal soon."

"Can you stand?" Amun asked.

He and Jenks helped Edward to his feet. Esme cried out and clutched her chest. Like a zombie, she staggered toward Edward, her palms already glowing.

"No, no, save it," Jenks told her and she moaned as if it hurt her to try to hold back.

"We've got to keep moving," Amun said. He plucked a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped Edward's blood off his switchblade before dropping the cloth to the ground.

"I say we stick the plastique on the walls and blow the goddam building to hell and back," Phoenix suggested. "Fuck this invasion shit."

"There could be Gifted inside," Bella said at the same time Amun spoke: "My Kebi is inside."

The team went silent.

Forks was the one who spoke up, and his voice was uncommonly gentle. "She isn't yours, man. She was a fuckin' Mata Hari."

Amun stuck his knife back into his pocket. "She _is_ mine." He said it in the same tone he might have said, "The grass _is_ green," as if it were a simple, established and indisputable fact.

"Aw, Christ, he's gone off the deep end," Quil whispered.

"Come on guys, we can discuss this later," Jasper said. "We've got to keep going. It's not safe for us to stand in one place too long."

As if to prove him right, a shot rang out. All of them dove for cover. Jenks fell onto his back, his two pistols firing even as he lunged for the ground. Amun bolted in the direction from which the shots had come. All they could see was the orange-red swirls of his sword in the darkness.

Jenks watched the swirling beams with awe. "Shoulda sent a fuckin' poet," he said.

Bella was laying on Edward's chest. She recoiled. "Oh God, Edward, did I hurt you? Your wing is it -"

"I'm fine," he insisted. "It doesn't hurt as much, so it must be healing."

"Oh, Edward, when I saw you get shot I was -"

What stopped her words was surprise at how garbled they sounded. She put a hand to her mouth, but couldn't feel the pressure of her fingertips against her lips. She felt over its textures, and found the left side hanging loose, the lips slack and loose. Hearing it was one thing. Actually feeling it was another. She had a feeling that when she saw herself in a mirror next time (if there _was_ a next time,) she'd freak out all over again.

He took her hand away and held it in his. "I know what you were feeling," he said. "I never want to hear you scream like that again."

She laid her head down and listened to the strong, steady throb of his heart.

"Clear," Jenks called, and they all climbed to their feet. Edward tried to carry her, but Bella flat-out refused until he was completely healed.

"I'll take her," Forks offered. He scooped Bella off her feet before anyone could object. "See? I'm useful sometimes," he said in a loud whisper.

"You're also useful as a cautionary example," Jenks offered, and clicked fresh clips into his guns. He did a quick headcount to make sure everyone was present and safe before nodding toward the side of the building, where they were headed. "Stay low to the ground. Laurie, there's a camera on the corner up there. See it? Think you could hit it from here?"

"I can try," she said. She knelt and took the rifle from her back and propped her elbow in its strap. She took careful aim and fired. The camera exploded.

"Nice shot!" Quil told her, in tones of admiration.

"All those video games with you boys paid off," she said.

Jenks motioned them ahead and they followed him, bent over at a crouch. Amun pointed to the side and made a curving motion with his hand. He slipped into the trees silently. His feet did not even crunch in the leaves.

They reached the wall of the facility and crept up to the front corner. Jenks reached over and yanked the baseball cap off of Quil's head and took a stick from the ground. He put the cap on the end of it and stuck it around the corner.

Its appearance was greeted with an intense explosion of gunfire that made them all instinctively duck and cover their heads. Jenks pulled back the stick and Quil looked mournfully at the shreds of fabric that had once been his hat.

Amun's sudden reappearance made Alice jump and give an involuntary little shriek. "The back is less heavily guarded," he said. "But there are still at least half a dozen troops."

Jenks tossed his stick and the shreds of Quil's cap. "There's an entrance?"

Amun nodded. "A large retractable door for vehicles."

"Begun, the Garage Door War has," Jenks said. "Let's go.

Amun stopped them when they reached the corner. "Are there any grenades left?"

"No, we're out."

Amun considered. They had the same problem at this corner: they had to come around the edge of it to fire, and there was no cover for at least fifteen feet.

"I will cover you," he said. "All of you, run for that small clump of trees back there." He pointed.

"All right. On the count of three: One... two ... _three_." Amun stepped around the corner and began to fire as they all ran, crouched over, for the trees. Forks still carried Bella and his breath came in gasps. "Fuck ... me ... I ... gotta ... quit ... smoking," he rasped. He put Bella down on her feet once they reached safety and crawled up beside Phoenix to peer over the top of a log. Amun followed them. His chest bore four new holes, each with a trickle of blood dripping over his bare flesh, but they seemed to bother him no more than mosquito bites.

The Theta Project troops were hidden behind a low wall of sandbags at the edge of the retractable door. Jenks peeked at them and then ducked back down. "Fuck. Six of 'em?"

"At least," Amun said. He put a hand to his chest and swayed slightly, but he closed his eyes and got himself firmly under control.

"You okay, man?"

"I will be fine."

"Alrighty then. Ix-nay on the idea of sending the Flaming Sword Dude in to clear a path. We gotta do this the old-fashioned way. Lauren, get your sniper hat on."

Lauren paled, but she crawled up to the fallen log and propped her rifle on the top.

"Best shot among us," Forks whispered in Bella's ear. "But she's never shot _people_ before."

"You can do it," Jenks said. "I'll help." He propped his own rifle up beside hers. "Like shootin' cans off the ship rails." He took careful aim and squeezed off a shot. There was a grunt and a thud. "See? Nothin' to it."

Lauren took a deep breath and let it out slowly before squeezing the trigger. There was another thud.

"Only four more," Jenks said.

Suddenly, a brilliant spotlight shone in their direction, illuminating their position, blinding those who had been looking in its direction when it was switched on.

"Get down!" Jenks shouted, his voice nearly drowned out by the hail of gunfire that erupted. Bullets dug chunks out of the log, and sliced at the trees around them. Edward pressed Bella into the earth and tried to hide her with one of his wings.

"Shield!" Bella called but Jenks barked back, "No, save it!"

"There's a lot more of them than six," Phoenix groused.

"They sent in reinforcements under the cover of that light," Amun explained. "They know we cannot see to aim."

"This isn't fuckin' good," Jenks said grimly. "Laurie, can you find the spotlight?"

Lauren tried to peek over the log, but as soon as she raised her head, the guns erupted again. She ducked back down with a little scream of alarm.

"Okay, I guess not. Anybody have any ideas? 'Cause I'm fresh fuckin' out."

All of them froze when they heard it: The roar of an engine getting closer, very quickly.

"What in the furry fuck is _that_?" Phoenix yelled. It seemed to come from nowhere. As it bounced and lunged toward them, they saw that it was the RV, driven by a tiny figure who did not so much as flinch as she plowed through the line of soldiers, sending bodies flying, slamming into the hood and being crushed beneath the wheels.

"Jane!" Bella screamed.

The RV barreled past them, straight at the back of the building, right toward the giant sliding door. The brake lights never flashed. With a terrific crash, it slammed through, buckling the door around it like a tissue before ramming it into the building along with half of the RV.

Bella surged to her feet and floundered her way toward it, dragging her left foot, screaming her daughter's name. The only sound was a hiss of steam escaping from somewhere under the RV.

The front of the vehicle was crunched like an accordion. Bella's voice broke and she looked over at Edward with terror-filled eyes. They reached the door on the side and Edward ripped it from the hinges before he charged inside.

It was a jumbled mess of furniture that had been torn from its moorings with the force of the crash. Edward flung chairs and the table aside and then lifted the sofa. Jane lay below. She sat up. "Did Dave's seatbelt work okay?" she asked.

Bella wanted to hit her and kiss her and shake her senseless, all while hugging her at the same time. Edward pulled her to her feet and hugged her hard. "Go to your mother," he ordered. "I'll find Dave."

He could hear Dave yowling, a cry of fear and distress, but not, thankfully, of pain. He found the chair with the crate still strapped to it and stood it upright. He opened the door and Dave leapt into his arms, frantically licking every inch of skin he could reach.

"Everybody okay?" Jenks asked.

"Yeah, I ran to the back before it hit," Jane explained. She reached down and pulled off the paperback books taped to her feet.

"You stupid, stupid girl," Bella scolded. She kissed Jane's cheeks, her forehead and then crushed her into a hug so hard it made Jane squeak. "You could have been _killed_."

"No, mom, I did the math!" Jane protested. She held a backpack and she zipped a protesting Dave inside before squirming into the straps. "I jumped in the back to brace myself and these things are built with crumple zones, designed to - "

Jenks snickered. "Come on, explain later. We've gotta go." Before he had even said the last word, there was the sound of boots on tile and he shouted, "Incoming! Take cover!"

They dove beneath the crumpled RV and crawled to the other side. They were inside a huge garage, their only cover the RV as the soldiers ducked behind the line of black SUVs that were parked along the wall.

Jane peeked around the fender. "I've got it!" she called.

Jenks picked the soldiers off, one by one, as they broke cover and jumped up, hands clutched to their heads.

"Good job, Janey," he praised and she beamed.

"Come on." Jenks motioned to them and they darted out from behind the RV toward the line of SUVs.

But there was one soldier that Jane hadn't seen. He fired off a shot and it caught Forks in the neck and spun him around with the force of it. Blood sprayed out in a fan and he collapsed gracelessly to the concrete floor.

"_FORKS_!" Phoenix screamed. He darted out to grab Forks by the arms and drag him behind cover as more shots broke out from the reinforcements that poured in through the open doorway. Half of their group had made it to the SUVs and the other half was still back behind the RV, split apart and pinned down.

Phoenix dragged Forks over to where Bella and Edward crouched behind one of the SUVs. Bella's medical knowledge only extended to giving light first aid, but even she could tell that Forks was not going to make it. Half his throat was gone. His eyes rolled back in his head and his body jerked in spasms as the pool of blood beneath him widened.

"Keep pressure on it," Phoenix whipped off his t-shirt and pressed it to the wound. "Bella, help me! Push here. Esme! _Esme!_ Hurry!"

"Phoenix."

The sound of gunfire all around them seemed to fade into the distance, lose its importance.

"Don't you die on me you dumb motherfucker!" Phoenix swore. "Don't you fuckin' _dare_ die on me._ Esme_! Esme, where the fuck are you, goddamit!"

"Phoenix."

"Don't die. Come on, Forks, please ... Don't die."

"Phoenix."

He seemed to finally hear her. He looked up and met her eyes.

Tears streaked Bella's cheeks. "He's gone."

"No." Phoenix shook his head. "No."

She laid a hand on his arm.

"_No_!" He put one hand over the other and began chest compressions.

"Phoenix." Now it was Jenks who spoke. Bella was startled. She realized that all of the gunfire had ceased. Phoenix faltered.

Jenks crouched down beside Phoenix. His voice was soft, compassionate. "I'm sorry."

"He's my best friend," Phoenix's voice cracked. "He can't be - He just _can't._"

"I'm sorry," Jenks said again.

Phoenix bowed over Forks's body, and his wide shoulders began to shake. A hoarse sob tore from his throat.

"Come on," Jenks gently tugged on Phoenix's shoulder. Phoenix threw him off. "No!"

"We have to go. We can't stay here."

Phoenix gazed at his best friend for a long moment and then took the t-shirt he had used as a bandage and shook it out before gently laying it over his face. "Will we ... Will we come back for him?"

"Yeah, we'll come back for him," Jenks said. "We leave no man behind, remember?"

"Leave no man behind," Phoenix repeated.

"Come on, man. Let's kill the bastards who did this."

Phoenix let his eyes linger on Forks for a moment longer. Then he turned to Jenks with malice glittering in his eyes. "No survivors," he spat.


	41. Chapter 41

Chapter Forty-One

..

"No survivors," Jenks agreed. He held out a hand to Phoenix and helped him to his feet.

Esme approached Phoenix, her eyes full of sorrow. "I'm so sorry. I wish I could have - "

"Not your fault," Phoenix said briskly. He bent down and took Forks's guns and checked them for load, then shoved them in the back of his then lifted Forks's hand and slid his skull ring off and put it on next to his own. "Likely, you couldn't have saved him even if you were right beside him when he got hit. He bled out too fast."

"Still ... I'm sorry."

Phoenix gave her a lopsided smile. "Let's save that part for later, okay?"

"I really liked him," Jane said softly. Her eyes lingered on the still form lying on the ground. Forks had liked Jane, too, and was always willing to play cards or Scrabble with her. (He cheated blatantly at the latter, insisting that words like '_bgtplo_' were legitimate and making up elaborate definitions for them.) He'd once taught her how to play poker and lost ten grand to her the same night.

"I liked him, too," Bella replied, and put her arm around Jane's shoulders to lead her away. "He was a good guy."

Phoenix joined Amun at the head of the group, Collin and Jenks right behind them. They followed the garage wall to an open doorway. Amun put a hand on Phoenix's shoulder and held up a single finger to tell him to wait and then looked around the corner. He lifted his pistol and fired a single shot at the ceiling, likely at a camera, and then motioned them forward.

The long hallway was floored with green speckled tiles, waxed to a brilliant sheen. Their shoes squeaked on it as they walked. It was lit by rectangular fluorescent panels set into a foam-tile ceiling. The light gleamed off the stark, white walls with flat rubber baseboards. In the center, a hallway branched off to the right and left, but between, there were many solid wood doors that had inset glass panels laced with wire. It reminded Bella of a hospital for some reason.

Phoenix and Amun set off in a coordinated dance, one of them kicking the door open and the other spinning around the door frame, guns at the ready. "Clear!" Bella peeked inside the rooms as they passed and saw offices, classrooms, laboratories. She changed her mind; it wasn't like a hospital, it was like a high school. Each room was vacant and some showed signs of being hastily abandoned: papers scattered, chairs knocked over ... In one room, what she saw made her gasp and hastily shut the door before Jane could see. Upon a stainless steel table was a baby, and someone had been performing either an autopsy or a dissection.

"Don't look," she said.

"Left, right or straight ahead?" Amun asked Bella when they reached the intersecting hallway.

She shook her head. "I don't know. Alice? Do you see anything?"

Both she and Amun had expressions that indicated concentration: Amun straining to curb his dampening power and Alice struggling to see beyond it. Alice's eyes went wide and vacant. Her breath hitched at whatever she saw and tears gathered in her eyes. She blinked rapidly as the vision receded and the tears spilled over to run down her cheeks. Her mouth worked as if she were trying to form words that kept escaping her lips before she could speak them.

"Just tell us which way to go to finish the mission," Bella said gently. "Which way to Aro and The Big Guy?"

"Left," Alice said. Her voice cracked and Jasper put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him and shuddered.

Amun shot out the camera before they turned the corner and Phoenix and Amun began kicking open doors again.

Alice caught up to Bella. "I - Bella, I saw - "

Bella shook her head. "I don't need to know. It's okay, Alice. I'm sort of expecting it."

"That's not -," Alice started, but gunfire interrupted her words. Everyone fell against the walls for cover, guns out at the ready. Jane threw her arms around Bella as if trying to shield her body with her own tiny form. Edward smiled down at her with pride and wrapped one of his wings around them both.

Phoenix stood in the doorway, one gun in each outstretched hand, firing into the room. A small smile played around his lips and Bella's blood chilled when she saw it. _Please don't let grief push him into the Dark_, she prayed. She'd never imagine good-humored Phoenix as vulnerable, but pain can do terrible things to people.

"He's not wearing a vest!" Bella noticed.

"No, he never put one on. He said it would slow him down."

Phoenix bent both elbows, pointing the guns upward. "Clear," he announced and turned away.

"Don't look," Bella said to Jane again, but she didn't think Jane was tempted. She kept her face pressed against Bella's shoulder.

They stood and set off again. When they came to an intersecting hallway, Alice pointed wordlessly to the right. "There are stairs at the end of this hall. If we go downstairs we -"

A shot whizzed by Bella's cheek, so close that she felt the wind of it. Bella spun Jane against the wall and Quil threw his hands up. Fire erupted from them in two blisteringly hot geysers. She heard guns firing again, but any bullet sent in their direction would have disintegrated in the wall of fire which swept toward the soldiers. Bella heard short screams that cut off almost as quickly as they started.

"Quil!" Phoenix yelled. "Shut it down before you burn the goddam building down around our heads!"

Quil reluctantly dropped his hands. The paint on the walls was on fire and there were four burning forms on the floor. Bella hastily looked away.

They reached the end of the hall. A metal door with a crash bar led to the stairs. Alice stopped Phoenix before he could open it. "Wait! It's full of soldiers. I saw Amun and Edward ... Aro and The Big Guy are in a vault down there, but there's a giant storage room full of soldiers. In my vision, I saw Amun and Edward go down first."

"I'm not leaving my Bella and my Jane," Edward said, in a voice that left no room for argument.

"Phoenix?" Amun jerked his head toward the stairs.

"Fine by me," Phoenix agreed. He snapped fresh clips into his guns.

"Wait! This isn't the way I saw it!"

"The future just changed," Amun shrugged.

"I'm going too," Bella said. "You need a shield."

Jane grasped Bella's arm. "If you're going, I'm going!"

"Christ, everybody come along, then," Jenks said, exasperated. "Everyone, remember not to fire unless Bella says she's dropped her shield, or you'll get an ass full of ricochet. Alice, you've seen what this room looks like. Is there cover?"

"It's like a maze of crates and boxes," Alice told him. "When you get to the bottom, take an immediate left and there's a row of ... something ... I can't see it too clearly, but I think we can take cover behind it."

"Bella?"

She threw a protective dome over their people, envisioning it as thick and heavy, impenetrable. "Shield's up," she said. She tried not to cringe at how badly her voice slurred. "_Sheels ub_," was what it had sounded like.

Phoenix drew Forks's guns from his belt. "For Forks," he said.

"Forks," Jenks agreed.

"_Forks_," everyone repeated in unison.

They crept down the concrete stairs, bunched so tightly together that when Phoenix stopped on the landing, they all crashed into one another. He chuckled, but pointed at what had made him stop. "Door," he said.

"Fuck," Jenks said. "So much for stealth."

"Bella, can you open it and hold it open until we're all out?"

She nodded.

"Wait until I say '_when_'."

They all bunched up again, behind it. "Remember the shield, people. Don't fire until we're behind cover and Bella has dropped it. Bella, _now!_"

Bella pushed the door open and Phoenix darted out, turning to the left. Bella heard someone fire a single shot, and as if that had been the signal everyone was waiting for, a storm of gunfire pounded against her shield. It felt like the entire US Army had attacked them. Thousands of hot stings hit her protective dome, and both she and Edward groaned from the pain. She saw Amun take a running leap and spring from the top of one of the crates, his sword of fire arcing through the air.

They dove behind the crates to the left of the stairs. "Window," Bella said.

Jenks stuck his hand out and felt around on her invisible shield until he found it and stuck his gun through the opening. Once everyone could see where it was located, they stuck their own guns through the gap.

Every time she saw a head or a muzzle flash, Jane pointed her Gift at them. Most jumped up, clutching their heads and screaming, only to be put down by a shot from the team. Some fell to the ground, rolling in agony, to be dispatched by Amun.

"Where's Phoenix?" Bella cried.

"Over there." Edward pointed to a figure striding boldly through the center of the room, guns held out to his sides, firing as he went. When his pistols ran out of shots, he simply open his hands and dropped them, then reached into the back of his belt and pulled out two more.

"Phoenix, you stupid fuck!" Jenks shouted. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

"Maybe that's what he wants," Edward said softly.

If that, indeed, was Phoenix's plan, it wasn't working. The soldiers were so astonished to see him calmly walking around in the middle of the battle, delivering head-shots as he went, that they didn't fire back at him. Maybe they thought he was shielded and was impervious to bullets. In any case, no one shot back until it was too late.

"Goddamit!" She saw Jenks stand, as though to chase after Phoenix and then he grunted and crumpled to the ground, his hand pressed against his stomach. A shot had made it through the narrow gap in Bella's shield. The bullet had clipped the bottom hem of his jacket as it went in through his lower abdomen.

Jenks groaned as he pulled off his vest. "Fat lot of good this fuckin' thing did me," he muttered.

"Jenks!" Lauren dropped her rifle and crawled over to him. "Let me see!" she ordered, trying to pry his hands away.

"No, I gotta keep pressure on it. Get into Collin's backpack and pull me out a gauze pad and some tape."

She came back with Collin instead of the supplies he'd requested. Collin looked at the wound when Jenks moved his hands and there was a long, silent communication between them.

"No," Lauren said. "He'll be fine."

"Sure," Collin replied. "Here. Hold this." He dug inside his backpack for a couple of packets of gauze pads and tape.

"I'm gut-shot, Laurie," Jenks said gently.

"This isn't the Wild West," Lauren retorted. "We'll get you to a hospital soon and you'll be _fine."_

"Sure," Jenks said.

"Don't you fucking patronize me, asshole," Lauren snapped.

Jenks chuckled. "God, I love you, woman." He groaned as Collin pressed a bandage to the area and whipped around his body with the gauze, to hold it in place. "Christ, that fuckin' hurts."

"Want some morphine?" Collin asked.

"Not like me to turn down dope, but this time, I'm gonna pass," Jenks said. "I'll wait 'til we're done."

The shots had tapered off. Amun and Phoenix circled the room, finishing off any stragglers.

"No, please, don't -" she heard someone scream, cut off when Phoenix fired a shot into the prone body.

"We're clear!" Phoenix called.

Bella stood and took one of Jane's hands and one of Edward's. They crossed the carnage-filled room to the far wall, where a door like a bank vault stood.

Amun came to stand beside them silently, studying it.

"Can you pick the lock?" Bella said hopefully.

Amun shook his head. "This is beyond my capabilities."

She was pretty sure it was beyond her own, as well.

"I will help you," Amun said. He gestured for Jane and Edward to step back and took both of her hands. "You can do this, Bella. It is your fate and God would not have led you here without granting you the power to do what he wishes."

"This is worse than the blast doors in Yucca Mountain," Bella said.

He considered. "Yes, it is, but I do not think you will let this door stop you from completing your mission. On the other side of this door is the end, Bella. Your last task."

She blinked. She hadn't even considered that, but he was right. This was the end. Now that she was here, it felt strangely unreal. She heard Jim Morrison sing in her mind:

_This is the end  
>My only friend, the end<br>This is the end  
>Beautiful friend, the end<br>_

_Of our elaborate plans, the end  
>Of everything that stands, the end<br>No safety or surprise, the end  
>I'll never look into your eyes, again<br>_

Bella focused on the vault door, drawing up on the deep and bottomless well of her anger at the Theta Project: for making her live her life on the run, for kidnapping her, for everything they had done to the residents from trying to turn them into weapons to the breeding program, for shooting Jane and killing Forks, for torturing Edward and cutting off his wings ...

She felt it rising up in her and she let the charge it created build to levels she had once felt too afraid to reach, knowing instinctively that her body couldn't take that level of power, but now there was no holding back. She had reached the end of the road, one way or the other.

She felt her feet leave the ground and the air whipped around her like the gusts created by a firestorm and the snap of electricity dancing along her skin. She heard Amun cry out and release her hand as the charge bit into him but she didn't need him any more. She had drank deeply of the power he had offered her and now he was like an empty cup she tossed aside.

She ripped the door off and threw it aside, the five-feet-thick steel circle shaking the room when it crashed to the floor. The pins which had locked it in place were as large in circumference as a two-liter soda bottle, sheered off from the unstoppable force of her mind. She felt blood gush from her nose to drip from her chin and felt a trickle from each ear course its way down her neck. Her power held her upright; her body was no longer capable of such a task.

She floated inside and smelled gunpowder and blood. The Big Guy was seated in a chair, his head flopped back. She could see the hole under his chin and the blood pooling beneath the chair as it dripped from the top of his head. That is, where the top of his head used to be. The gun he had used lay on the floor beside him.

"Coward," she said, but the word was so garbled that it didn't sound like English.

General Aro Volturi was seated on a folding chair over by the wall-mounted television. On it was a remarkably clear surveillance camera image of the storage room and the carnage they had left behind.

Aro stood and retrieved his suit jacket from the back of his chair. He shrugged into it and straightened his tie, then plucked at his cuffs to straighten them and flicked a bit of lint from the jacket's arm. He looked at her, waiting. His face was impassive, his eyes full of calm acceptance. He had thrown everything he had at her and been unable to stop her. He looked into the face of death and did not blink.

She nodded. She had to give him respect for that much, at least.

He exploded into a fine mist of blood. It was done.

She collapsed, her power gone as abruptly as a house losing electricity when a fuse has been tripped. She barely had the strength to pull air in and out of her lungs.

Edward cried out and ran forward to scoop her off the ground. "Bella!"

She tried to say his name, but it came out in a garbled mess. Jane knelt down beside her, tears streaking her cheeks. Bella tried to smile at her, but her lips didn't obey her commands any longer. She was with the people she loved most in the world at this last. No one could ask for more.

Dimly, she heard a commotion and realized that it was the last of the Theta Project troops, swarming into the room, too fast and close for guns. Aro must have called for reinforcements that arrived far too late. It was hand-to-hand combat. She saw Amun buy his switchblade in a soldier's solar plexus and shove upward, into his heart. The man fell beside Bella, his sightless eyes staring into hers.

A rifle butt swung down and caught Jane on the back of head. Bella tried to shield her, but her power was gone and even Edward wasn't fast enough. Jane fell, unconscious, over Bella's body. Bella let out a strangled cry.

Edward dragged them over behind a desk that had been knocked over. The sounds of the battle receded as she looked up into his tear-filled eyes.

"Is this it, isn't it?" Bella asked Edward. Her body was ruined, her power completely sapped. She couldn't see beyond the desk, but from the sounds of it, her exhausted friends were being overwhelmed. She heard Alice scream, a sound that was cut off with horrifying suddenness. Jasper called her name, anguish in his voice.

Edward smiled, gently, through his tears. He tucked her hair behind her ear, that tender gesture she had always loved. "Yes, I think so."

"I'm sorry," Bella said. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you the life you wanted with me ... a yard, and babies, and Jane's wedding."

"I couldn't ask for more happiness than you gave me. It may not have been the life I envisioned, but it was with you, and that was enough for me."

_Can you picture what will be_  
><em>So limitless and free<em>

"I love you, Edward." Whatever the other side was like, it would be perfect because he was with her.

"I love you, Bella." He pressed a final kiss to her lips, lingering and sweet. "Ready?" His hands slipped under her hair to cup her head.

"_BELLA_!"

They froze in place.

"_BELLA_! _EDWARD_!"

Bella's brow crinkled. She recognized that voice, but ... "It can't be."

They heard shouts. A brief scuffle ... few shots were fired and then silence.

Emmett peered over the desk at them. "Are you still alive?"

"_Emmett_?" Bella said. "Jesus Christ, is it really _you_?"

"Yep, it's me," Emmett said. "You can stand up now."

Edward stood with Bella in his arms, and both of them gaped comically at the sight in front of them.

"Hi," Rose said. She picked up Jane's limp body and hugged her. She kissed both of her cheeks and grinned with delight down at the girl in her arms.

"Nice to see you again," Carlisle added. He had his arms around Esme, whose face was blank with shock.

Bella sat down in shock. "What are you _doing_ here? Did you Fall again?"

Rose jiggled Jane in her arms. "Obviously not." She wouldn't be able to touch Jane, much less carry her, if she was Fallen.

"Is she okay?" Bella wanted to reach out to touch her daughter, but her arms didn't work any longer.

"She'll be fine," Rose said with a smile. "I tried to tell her that in her dream, but I don't think she believed I was real."

"Havin' trouble acceptin' that one myself," Jenks said. His face was gray with pain and blood loss. He had an arm around Lauren's shoulders and she was struggling to hold him upright. Her face was pale, resigned, stricken with the grief she knew was coming.

"Where the fuck did you people come from?" Ben demanded. "We haven't seen you since the arctic facility."

"We were sent to make sure all of you survived," Carlisle said.

"Aw, fuck, not another 'task'," Jenks groaned.

"You couldn't have got here a little bit earlier?" Phoenix demanded, and Bella knew he was thinking about Forks.

"Some things are meant to happen," Rose told him. Compassion made her voice soft. Phoenix looked away, his eyes bitter.

"Join in a circle, all of you," Emmett instructed.

"Why?"

"Because you're about to get your miracle. Esme, come here and take my hand."

Jenks wobbled his way over to them, leaning on Lauren heavily.

Those who could not stand, Bella and Jane, were placed in chairs. Edward picked up Bella's hands because she could not move them herself, and put one in Rose's and held the other himself. He pressed a kiss to it and she wished she could feel the warmth and softness of his lips.

When they had all joined the circle Rose spoke to Esme: "Send your healing power out."

Esme's hands began to glow as soon as the words left Rose's lips, as if she was having difficulty holding back and Rose had broken the dam holding back her flood of light.

Blinding white light ... it spread along the chain, enveloping each of them until they all glowed with it, and it seemed to feed off of the Talent of each of them, growing hotter, stronger, more brilliant by the moment.

A burning heat spread through Bella's body and then speared into her head. She cried out at the intensity of it. It wasn't really pain, but it felt almost _nuclear_, as if every cell in her body had fused to create astounding levels of energy. If it wasn't for the feeling of the hands that held her on the right and left, she might have thought she'd gone super-nova, like a star's last burst of brilliance. Hands ... she could _feel_ them!

With a final burst of light, it faded. They all sagged, each of them gasping for air as though they had run a marathon.

"Holy shit," said Jenks. He looked down at his stomach and wiped away the blood with his fingers. He found it intact, the skin perfectly smooth and unblemished. Jane sat up in her chair and looked around in confusion. Her eyes stopped on Rose. Her jaw dropped. "I know you!" she cried.

"I hoped you would," Rose said softly.

Bella looked at her hands in wonderment. She tapped each finger to her thumb. She took one of Edward's feathers between her index finger and thumb and smoothed the vane. Then she touched her face. Everywhere her fingers landed, she could feel. A delighted laugh mingled with tears of joy. Edward swept her up in his arms and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

"This is what I saw," Alice whispered. "But I thought it meant we were all going to die."

"Carlisle?" Esme whispered. She reached out with a shaking hand to touch him and when her fingers made contact, she burst out with a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob.

And then the grief and fear that had gripped them all gave way to laughter and tears of joy.

* * *

><p>They headed up the stairs to the second floor, the only area that had not been searched. Amun insisted they could not leave until they had found "My Kebi" and they felt they had to search to make sure that there were no Gifted left trapped in the facility. (Ben and Phoenix were already outside, wiring the plastic explosive to the walls.)<p>

They found no Gifted in residence and Bella really hoped that they had been released but she feared the worst. Behind every door that they opened, Bella expected to find a pile of bodies.

The last door they came to was the only one that had a keycard lock beside it. Amun broke open the cover of the keycard reader. He flicked open his switchblade and went to work. In seconds, the door slid open.

Kebi was sitting on her bed, her knees drawn up to her chest. "Amun!" she cried. She jumped off the bed and ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, thank God, thank God," she whispered. "I didn't want to! I didn't, but he had my sister and he said that if I didn't - "

"We will discuss this later," Amun said, as though it were of little consequence. "Are you injured?"

"No, I am fine."

"Then follow me." Amun turned and headed out the door. Kebi obediently trailed behind.

Bella turned to Emmett as they followed. "Why are you here?"

"It ... um ... turns out that we were always supposed to come," Emmett said, his cheeks flushing a little. "It was fated. We just ... jumped the gun a little the first time. Now we have been sent to protect you."

"So, this really _was_ a mission from God?" Bella asked.

Rose laughed softly. "Did you ever really doubt it?"


	42. Epilogue

Epilogue

..

_Two years later ..._

_.  
><em>

"Come out for a swim with me," Edward coaxed.

"Sure, just let me finish up in here and I'll join you," Bella replied. She watched his nude form walk away, taking a moment to admire the most perfect ass that God had ever created. A living work of art, sculpted perfection. His skin was golden from playing outside in the tropical sunshine, contrasting beautifully with his blindingly white wings.

Bella watched him through the kitchen window as he played on the beach with Dave and the puppies. Dave's mate dozed in the shadow of the palm tree at the corner the little lawn they had planted so that Edward could mow it. She was the beta from the small pack of guard dogs at the mountain facility. Edward had kept his promise to them and given them all the hamburger he could find in the kitchen of the facility. Afterward, Jane had nervously asked Edward why the pit bull was following her. The beta had told Edward that she smelled her mate inside Jane's backpack. Edward had taken Dave out and set him on the ground and the female had given him a thorough sniffing. Her head was larger than his entire body. She had confirmed that yes, indeed, Dave was her mate, or rather, he _would_ be once he grew up.

Now, Dave was the father of five extraordinarily ugly puppies, "pitt mutts" as Emmett called them, a bizarre combination of their small, wiry-haired father and their large, muscular, blunt-faced mother. But never had a litter of puppies been more loved.

The other two guard dogs roamed the island at will; Edward had insisted they could not leave them behind since there was no one left to feed them. They had never been pets and they felt uncomfortable living in a house, so Edward kept feeders full of dog food under a little shelter in the wooded part of the island. The dogs, well-fed and happy, were fiercely protective of their new pack.

Bella finished washing the dishes and went into their bedroom to put on her swim suit. Edward was comfortable and happy being naked, but Bella had never quite managed to adopt his casual attitude toward nudity. She slathered on sunscreen before she dressed. Edward turned a luscious golden-brown in the sun; she only got burned.

She left a note for Jane in the kitchen, in case she and Rose came home from Alice and Jasper's house and wondered where Bella and Edward were. Jane spent a lot of time over there these days because Rose and Emmett were passionately in love and both of them faced the agonizing dilemma of whether to stay at the side of their human or go to be with the one they loved. So Jane took her school work over there in the afternoon so that the angels could be together and still have their humans nearby. She had graduated high school as soon as she'd taken the exams and had spent the last two years taking college courses online. By the time she was old enough to go away to college, she'd already have her Master's degree.

The surf was high today, sending tall waves to crash against their beach. She saw Jenks far down the shore, identifiable by the loud Hawaiian shirt he wore, and by the long, blonde hair of the woman who strolled beside him holding his hand. In her arms, she carried a plump baby, a little boy who, God help him, looked just like his father.

Their island was small, but their houses were comfortably spaced out to give each one the feeling of privacy. All of the team lived here, except for Amun and Kebi. None of them had ever fully forgiven her for her betrayal, except for Amun, to whom it did not seem to matter. Kebi was his, regardless of what she had done or why. They came to visit occasionally, landing Amun's plane at the island's airstrip, and the changes in him were remarkable. Dave no longer called him a "black man", nor feared him. Amun was becoming ... _warm and friendly_. Bella wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it, and even though she didn't trust Kebi, she had to admit she had been a very positive force for Amun. The only problem, as she saw it, was Kebi's mortality, but she was hoping for another miracle.

It was Amun who had purchased the island for his friends. It was remote, and well-protected because it was deep in the territory of one of Jenks's "buddies."

"I'm not gonna tell you what he does, but it rhymes with '_bug roared'_," Jenks had told her. "He's super-rich, head of a vast empire, and very well-established. His guys patrol these waters constantly, and he's made it clear we're to be protected at all costs."

And so, they built little bungalows all over the island, all powered by solar panels and wind turbines. Jenks had hooked them all up with satellite phones and internet, though he grumbled about the cost.

Phoenix and Collin shared a house, though Collin was rarely home these days. He was dating a school teacher on the mainland and visited her so often that Jenks had bought him his own plane so that he didn't take theirs. They were taking it slow, Collin said, because he still had a lot of work he had to do on himself to become the person he wanted to be, but it seemed his girlfriend was willing to help him with it.

Phoenix was still a bit bitter over Forks's death, (he was buried here, at the base of the cliff on the far side of the island, his name carved deep into the rock) but he and Ben had struck up a close friendship, and it was helping him to heal. Bella was pretty sure the grief would always be a part of him, but she didn't worry about him so much any more.

Quil, Ben's house mate, had fallen deeply in love with a fireman he'd met on the mainland (fate, it seemed, had a delicious sense of irony) and was trying to convince him to move here, to their tropical paradise. Bella didn't think it would take much more urging. She had to admit, Quil had good taste, because the guy was almost as gorgeous as Edward.

She walked down the beach, carrying a couple of towels. Edward never remembered to bring one. She saw Esme sitting on the porch of her bungalow, embroidering what looked like a pillowcase. Carlisle was seated at her feet, watching her with adoring eyes. Esme had wanted her own house, just her and Carlisle. Bella tried to coax Esme along on trips to the mainland, because she hoped that Esme would meet someone that she could love, and have the family she'd always wanted, but Esme seemed to want solitude. Maybe that would change in the future. Bella hoped so. Esme, with her loyal and loving heart, deserved to find happiness.

As soon as he spotted her, Edward charged up the beach and scooped her up into his arms. Bella laughed and then squealed as he ran into the water with her. A wave crashed over her and she sputtered. She clung to his neck.

"You did that on purpose," she accused.

"Yes, I did," he said. His grin faded as he looked down into her face and his eyes grew soft and tender. He bent his head down to kiss her. Bella moaned softly. This was a hunger that would never be sated, a fire which would never be quenched. "My Bella," he whispered.

"Ahem!" Jenks loudly cleared his throat. They both looked up and saw him standing with Lauren at the edge of the surf. "Sorry to interrupt the make-out session, but can I talk to you guys for a minute?"

The puppies jumped and yipped around his ankles. Jenks usually carried a Slim-Jim in his pocket, which he would break into five pieces whenever he encountered the pups. They worshiped him. He sat down on the sand and dispensed the treat to the puppies who climbed all over him in eagerness.

Edward carried Bella out of the water and stood her on the sand. He flapped his wings to shake off the water. She fetched their towels and wrapped her body in hers. Edward use his to dry his hair. Jenks studiously ignored Edward's nudity. Everyone on the island had gotten more-or-less used to Edward running around naked. He even mowed his little lawn in the nude.

"Amun called," Jenks said, standing and brushing the sand from his pants. He took the baby from Lauren and gave him a little snuggle. "He's found another facility."

Bella's heart sank. "Where?"

"China."

"Oh." She bit her lip. That meant another long trip to a country where she didn't speak the language, away from the island paradise that she had grown to love and the stress of protecting her friends from danger. She would do her duty, but she wasn't happy about it.

"I just wanted to let you know because you and Alice are gonna have to share babysitting duty for little Omar here."

Lauren huffed. "Jenks, his name is not _Omar_. His name is Bradley. _Brad-lee_."

Jenks planted a big, smacking kiss on his wife's cheek. "I know. I just can't help think of the General every time I hear it."

Bella was still blinking in shock. "You want to leave me here?"

Jenks nodded. "Yeah. You and the nude dude stay here and watch over the kids and the puppies, and water Lauren's houseplants. We can handle it."

"But, Jenks, if it's my task -"

"_Our_ task," Jenks corrected. "And I think God'll give us a little leeway as to the arrangements. You sit this one out."

She started to object but Jenks interrupted her. "Seriously, Bella. I wouldn't jeopardize the team if I thought we needed you. Both Alice and Amun say this one isn't going to be difficult."

All over the world, Theta-like facilities had shut down, according to the intelligence that Amun gathered in his travels. In some cases, the Gifted trapped inside had rebelled and destroyed the facilities themselves. In others, the government had decided it wasn't worth the risk. The few that remained, they were going to take down one-by-one, with a nice, long break here in Paradise between.

"All right," Bella grudgingly acceded. "Be careful, okay?"

Jenks winked at her. "I always am. Besides, we're taking Esme. Now that Alice's visions have come back in Amun's absence, she's been able to tell us stuff, including the fact that Esme is going to meet someone _very interesting_ on this mission."

Bella gasped. "Oh, Jenks, that's wonderful!"

"So, you just hold down the fort here, take care of my boy, and we'll be back before ya know it. We'll stop by tomorrow morning to drop him off, okay?"

Bella nodded. "Okay."

Jenks gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek before he headed down the beach toward his own house.

"Come on, Bella, let's go play," Edward coaxed. "And for supper we'll have pancakes, and then we'll play Scrabble with our daughter, and then we'll go to bed and have sex!"

"That sounds like a plan for the perfect day," Bella replied. She dropped the towel and chased him into the waves.

"We'll have many of them," Edward promised. "For the rest of your life."

And he was right.

~_Finis_~


End file.
